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For a second, and then it was gone. She would blink a couple of times, and it would reappear. Then vanish. She’d squint, and it was back again.

A face, but not human. More like a rat, or maybe a wolf. Or a combination of the two.

Annie knew this face.

She shoved the pictures back into the drawer and slammed it shut.

Dawn, she thought as she went upstairs to her bedroom.At dawn, we are getting the fuck out of here.

The next morning, when she got up, Charlie was gone.

Thirty-One

Annie had one of the worst sleeps of her life, woke up for good at five, and shortly before six decided to jump out of bed and get moving.

Before heading downstairs, she showered, dressed, and packed up her clothes. Filled the two suitcases she’d brought for herself, gathered up all her items in the bathroom. Stripped the sheets from the bed, tucking them into a pillowcase, and threw the cover back on. Candace could put on a fresh set when she rented this place out to someone else—if she even did.

Then she entered the studio. Her work area had been set up by Finnegan before her arrival, so much of what was here duplicated what she had at home. And yet, it seemed wrong to leave everything here. What were the odds Candace would find another artist/illustrator to take the place? And wasn’t it borderline disrespectful to Finnegan to let all this stuff be pitched? She would have to think about this. There were some empty grocery bags in the kitchen to pack up some brushes and paints and whatnot.

She had a moment’s hesitation about taking home the illustrations of her latest creation, as well as the six-inch tall figure she’d made of it. In the last couple of days, she had put the finishing touches to it. Detailed the trench coat, perfected the hairy, claw-like paws or hands extending from the sleeves and pant legs. Worked on those menacing eyes, the sharp teeth.

If anyone had asked her the day before whether she would take this work home with her, she wouldn’t have hesitated.

But this morning, the memory of what she’d seen in that studio portrait haunted her. And not because she was seeing it for the first time, but because it reinforced what she had seen before. Years ago, when she was a child, and then again, years later, since coming to this house. Why was this Penn Station rat-wolf eating its way into her brain? Was it something intrinsic to this house? Did it have something to do with the trains? And would packing this representation she’d made of it be like taking home a memento of a nightmare?

She concluded, finally, that leaving it behind wouldn’t erase it from her memory. She’d made it with her own hands, for Christ’s sake.It was a part of her. To toss it was to admit her fear of it. Well, fuck that.

She would pack it.

Despite wanting to leave early, she wasn’t going to wake Charlie at this hour. His door was closed, and she would let him sleep. Stealthily, she brought her two suitcases down the stairs and set them inside the front door. In the kitchen she found some bags that would hold everything she wanted to bring home from the studio.

But first she decided to prepare some food for the trip. She took the bag of bagels Finnegan had brought. She was thinking he’d brought an entire dozen, but there were only six. Still, plenty for the trip home. She put just butter on three, and cream cheese on the other three. She would have put peanut butter on at least one of them, but she couldn’t find it in the cupboard. She put the bagels into the small cooler Finnegan had brought, along with an ice pack, mainly for the ones slathered with cream cheese. There were several different bottled beverages in the fridge that she’d add just before they left.

Back to the studio she went with several bags. She packed up everything she wanted to keep, and took extra care with the figure,wrapping it in some paper before placing it in a Bloomingdale’s canvas tote with the wordsmedium brown bagprinted on the side.

She cast her eye on the train layout on the floor.

“Goodbye,” she said.

And she could have sworn, for a split second, the headlight on the engine flicked on and off. She stared at it for several seconds, willing it to flash once more, but it did not. She was leaving everything there as it was. She was not going downstairs for that Tide box and packing it up. Let Candace do it.

She went back down to the front hall, grabbed her car remote, went outside, and hit the button to open the tailgate. She put everything in. The only stuff left to pack was what was in Charlie’s room.

He had asked about taking the bicycle home, a question she had dodged. She didn’t want to take it, didn’t want him riding around the streets of New York. And even if she were to change her mind, she would want to get him a better bike.

All of which was moot if she couldn’t fit it into the back of the car with the rest of their stuff. To gauge its size, Annie walked over to the side of the porch where Charlie’d been parking the bike.

It was not there.

That gave Annie a brief start, but then she remembered that when the police were here, she’d instructed Charlie to ride it out back of the house. So she rounded the corner, walked down the side, then into the backyard.

The bike was nowhere to be seen.

Annie had a bad feeling.

It could have been stolen, of course. Not as likely here as in New York, but possible. Someone driving by could have seen the bike up by the porch, run up, and taken it. Except it would have been after dark, and the bike would have been hard to see from the road, and who would want a shit bike like that anyway?

Annie ran back around to the front and into the house, no longer making any effort to be quiet. She bounded up the stairs and pushed open the door to Charlie’s room.