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Through ures in the front yard One was John, ararette smoke in a horizontal streanized as John’s uncle Drake, still the only cop in tohom ere on a first-naarette bobbing slightly in the darkness John was growing a beard He had been working construction off and on after having been fired fro DVDs and giving the the them away I cli wind

The loo house didn’t just look eone downhill since I had last seen it on the night I tried to return Molly Peeling paint, filthy s, no tire tracks in the driveway

Big Jim had looked after Amy in the years since their parents died, but I don’t knoas looking after her now Apparently nobody, since she was lost and all Man, was it cold

Drake looked shabbier than I did, the man inflated in full cop uniform and parka, complete with one of those navy blue fur earflap hats The blue bli," he said, with a lack of enthusiasm usually reserved for door-to-door Mormons

I don’t enjoy our little encounters either, Drake But here we are, just the sahbors saw her dog walking around the neighborhood this afternoon They tried to return her and couldn’t get anybody at the door I calance at John

"Uh, I thought you guyshalf hour!

I pushed that thought from my head and pretended it had never been there Besides, I knew exactly where I had been duringaround and around ht? Perfect sense

John flicked away his cigarette and crunched toward the front door "Drake is gonna see if Aures ot scared off by the, uh--"

The two of the the door to his cruiser, Drake said, "You find anything, you callit clear that eren’t cops, that ano matter eird-assedness lurked inside the house

John tipped a finger at hi us, Drake You’re the kind of man a man wants when a man wants a man"

Just inside the door was a little entrance hall with a black-and-white tiled floor, like a chessboard There was a plate-sized chunk of tilenear the wall and the bare wood had been painted in to ic Marker and Wite-Out

I glanced into the kitchen

I froze

Molly

No question it was her A red Labrador whatever, fast asleep on the linoleuliht

No way Just another dog of the same breed Surely

"Oh, that’s her," said John "Go look at the collar Got the address on there and everything"

"Buthow?"

"Don’t know She answers to Molly, though Or at least as well as she ever did"

I wanted to go look closer but, I ad back froht et aexplode, that wasn’t Molly?"

"Don’t know"

"Or maybe that was Molly and this is, what, an ied "You should have seen me, when I saw her here I freaked out"

"You think she’s responsible for what happened to Ament until you see the jellyfish"

I didn’t ask I reluctantly turnedrooreen couch that looked to be from 1905 Up a stairway, into a darkened hall There was an unlit light fixture on the ceiling and one of those old brass switch plates on the wall, the kind with the black buttons I punched the top button, nothing happened

John stepped carefully down the hall, squinting into the darkness He turned and said, "No, that doesn’t do anything Handa--"

He held a hand out to shush e roolow from the , looked like a library of shelves mostly filled with odd shadowy shapes that were not books I sahat looked like a bundle of cobweb hanging fro and reached out to brush it aside--

POP!