The Darkest Evening of the Year

fog, in the last of the dying daylight, he will be wasting time and taking risks for nothing by trying to survey the terrain below from the slippery edge of the granite escarpment.
    A set of old concrete stairs with a rusted iron railing lead down to the beach. He can descend by those.
    He’s not keen on searching the strand, but if the bodies are down there, he needs to know. Before morning, the tide could carry them out to sea and move them farther along the coast.
    The police are clever about coastal currents and tide charts. Upon finding a corpse and, by forensics, determining the length of time that it has been in the water, they can calculate its point of origin with disturbing accuracy.
     

     
    The kneeling girl’s hands were folded, entwined by a silver chain, with perhaps a pendant hidden between her palms.
    She was beautiful, as she’d been beautiful as an infant. Beauty has more faces than beaches have grains of sand; and this was the beauty of innocence, humility, gentleness.
    Her eyes were blue, Brian’s shade of blue, and clear. They widened with wonder, but then a shyness came into them, and she looked away.
    Brian wanted to put a hand to her face, lift her chin, raise her eyes to him. He wanted to put his hand over her hands.
    That she might know who he was, that she might flinch at his touch, that she might ask where he had been all these years: The fear of rejection prevented him from touching her.
    “Let’s go, come on,” Amy whispered.
    “Honey,” he said softly, “do you know who I am?”
    Eyes still averted, the girl nodded.
    “Will you come with me?”
    “Mother has a knife.”
    “I’m not afraid of her.”
    “She kills you sometimes.”
    He trusted inspiration. “Not with our attack dog.”
    Following his gesture, she saw the golden for the first time. Her face brightened, and her eyes. “Doggie.”
    Considering this an invitation, Nickie went to the girl, plumed tail celebrating the making of a new friend, and Hope flung her arms around the dog in a display of instant and total trust.
    Brian glanced at Amy, and she motioned him to her.
     

     
    Amy worried that even if they could find keys for Michael’s vehicles, they couldn’t drive away. The engine would be heard. They would be shot down as they backed out of the garage.
    At any moment, they might encounter Michael or Vanessa. They had been in the house maybe three minutes. They were already overdue.
    “We can’t hunt them with Hope. The dog will keep her safe.”
    She saw the anguish in his eyes as he said, “That would make sense if you were right about…what Nickie is.”
    “My daughter will take your daughter to safety.” As Hope petted Nickie, the pendant on the chain hung visible. “Look.”
    The silver word stunned him.
    “Believe what you know,” Amy urged.
    She crouched to hug Hope, who was awkward about the affection, though she had been easy with the dog.
    “Honey, you’re going outside with Nickie. Hold her collar. Stay with her. She’ll keep you safe. Don’t be afraid.”
    Smiling at the dog, Hope said, “I’m not. She’s a Forever Shiny Thing.”
    With a glance at Brian, Amy said, “Yes, sweetie, she is.”
    The hall was deserted. They went to the nearby front door. Fog entered, and Hope left with Nickie.
    The dog hesitated on the stoop, testing the air, then led the girl quickly away into the fog.
     

     
    Harrow on the beach searches sand, fog, and surf foam for any sign of the bodies, when belatedly he realizes that he saw no blood in the Expedition.
    He feels deceived, not only by his quarry but also by his own expectations.
    Amy got lucky once, back in Connecticut, but she’s a submissive, not a transgressor, just like her architect, and it is an affront to Harrow’s deepest-held views to imagine that she could get the best of a killing machine like Billy.
    He hurries back to the steps and climbs two at a time, clutching at the rusty iron railing.
    He is not worried about Moongirl, only about missing something that she might do to them if she finds them in his absence.
     

     
    Vanessa catches the little freak doing it, mumbling over a HOPE pendant as though it’s a fragment of the Lord God Almighty’s toe-nail, hallelujah, smell that toe-jam residue!
    She always thought this would be long and slow when the time came. Thought she might like to take a couple of days breaking down the little freak before burning her.
    Now she just wants it over. Tonight. Right now.
    She has a