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"I’ to cut your goddaed

It wasn’t Laura’s now

It belonged to Linda Bekteroddamn head off and put it on the kitchen table with Daddy’s"

With a jolt, Carol recalled last week’s nightmare

There had been a moment in the dream when she had stepped into the kitchen and had encountered two severed heads on the table, a man’s and a wohtmare?

Carol finally took a step backwards, then another Although the rain was cold, she began to sweat

"I’ to tell you oneto cut your head off and chop you into a thousand little pieces," the girl said

And the voice now belonged to Jane

It wasn’t the voice of an identity heretofore only evident in a trance This was Jane’s voice She had come out of the trance on her oer She kneho she was She kneho Carol was And she still wanted to use the ax

Carol edged toward the back porch steps

The girl quickly circled in that direction, blocking access to the cabin Then she started toward Carol,

Carol turned and ran toward therain, which snapped with bulletlike power into the windshield, in spite of the dirty reasy pavement, Paul slowly pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor and swung the Pontiac into the passing lane

"It’s a mask," he said

Grace said, "What do you mean?"

"The Jane Doe identity, the Linda Bektermann and Millie Parker identities--each of the mask But a mask nonetheless Behind the mask there was always the saot to put an end to the masquerade once and for all," Grace said "If I can just talk to her as her Aunt Rachael, I’ll be able to stop this madness I’m sure I will, She’ll listen to meto Rachael That’s who she was closest to Closer than she was to her mother I can make her understand that her mother, Willa, didn’t intentionally or even accidentally start that fire back in 1865 At last she’ll understand She’ll see that there’s no justification for revenge The cycle will come to an end"

"If we’re in tih the stinging rain and through the knee-high grass She ran up the sloping h, gasping for breath, each stride jarring her to the bones

Ahead lay the forest, which seemed to be her only salvation There were thousand of places to hide in the wilderness, countless trails on which she could lose the girl After all, she was soe place

Halfway across the irl was only fifteen feet away

Lightning slashed through the bellies of the clouds, and the blade of the ax flashed once, twice, with a brilliant reflection of that icy electric glow

Carol looked straight ahead once more and redoubled her efforts to reach the trees The y, and in some places slippery She expected to fall or at least twist an ankle, but she reached the peri the trees, a the purple and brown and black shadows, into the lush undergrowth, and she began to think there was a chance-- maybe only a very small chance, but a chance nonetheless--that she would co wheel, squinting at the ra perfectly clear between us"

Grace said, "What’s that?"

"Carol’s my first concern"

"Of course"

"If alk into the middle of a nasty situation at the cabin, I’ll do whatever’s necessary to protect Carol"

Grace glanced at the glove coun"

"Yes If! have to, if there’s no other way, I’ll use it, Grace I’ll shoot the girl if there’s no other choice"

"It’s unlikely that we’ll walk into the middle of a

confrontation," Grace said "Either it won’t have begun yet--or it’ll all be over with by the tiri to stop s you should consider,"

Grace said

"What?"

"First of all, it’ll be just as tragic if Carol kills the girl And that’s the pattern, after all Both Millie and Linda attacked their mothers, but they were the ones killed What if that happens this tiirl in self-defense? You know she’s never stopped feeling guilty about putting the baby up for adoption She carries that on her shoulders sixteen years after the fact So ill happen when she discovers she’s killed her own daughter?"

"It’ll destroy her," he said without hesitation

"I think it very well ht And what’ll it do to your relationship with Carol if you kill her daughter, even if you do it to save Carol’s life?"

He thought about that for a ht destroy us, and he shuddered

For a while, no h the woods, Carol could not lose the girl She switched from one natural trail to another, crossed a small stream, doubled back the way she had coht below the brush line Sheof the rain Most of the time she carefully stepped on old leaves orno footprints, in the damp, bare earth Yet Jane pursued her with uncanny confidence, without hesitation, as if she were part bloodhound

At last, however, Carol was certain she had lost the girl She squatted under a huge pine, leaned back against the da for her heart to stop racing

A minute passed Two Five

The only sound was the rain drizzling down through the leaves and through the interlaced pine needles

She becaus and forest grass andmoved

She was safe, at least for now

But she couldn’t just sit beneath the tall pine, waiting for help to arrive Eventually, Jane would stop searching for her and would try to find a way back to the cabin If the girl didn’t get lost--which she ed to return to the cabin, and if she was still in a psychotic fugue when she got there, she ht murder the first person she encountered If she took Vince Gervis by surprise, even his great size and iainst the blade of an ax

Carol stood up, an to circle back toward the cabin The keys to the Volkswagen were in her purse, and her purse was in one of the bedrooet the keys, drive into town, and ask the county sheriff for assistance