In His Wife's Name. Joyce Sullivan

chair, and it came from behind and hit the planter. It almost got me. The other one landed in the sandbox.”

      “Stay inside. I’ll check it out.”

      Shannon’s heart ricocheted in her chest as Luke took one look at the planter and the chair where she’d been sitting, then ran toward the trees. Seconds later, his navy T-shirt and jeans were swallowed up by shadows and bristly pine branches. She didn’t want to think what might have happened if he hadn’t been here. What if the first rock had struck her and knocked her unconscious? Or the second rock had hit Samantha?

      Caution curbed Luke’s movements as he skirted a thicket of chokecherry, searching for signs of Mary and Samantha’s attacker, scanning the trees and scattered clumps of vegetation for movement and listening for sounds of snapped twigs. What the hell had just happened? This second incident on the heels of the slit tire two days before confirmed that Mary and her daughter were in real danger. From whom? Did this Mary know something about his wife’s killer and someone wanted to silence her? His hair rose on the back of his neck. The stand of pine and aspen was eerily silent—no sound of birds chirping, making him think that someone was still nearby. Watching. Waiting.

      “I know you’re there,” he said in an authoritative tone. “Come on out and apologize. That was a really stupid thing to do. Someone could have been seriously hurt.”

      Silence met his demand.

      “Well, if you won’t come to me, then I’ll come to you.” He strode toward a point in the path strewn with embedded stones, presuming the thrown rocks had originated there. Sure enough, two indentations in the sandy soil exposing fresh dirt confirmed his theory. He glanced in the direction of Mary’s cottage. The only thing visible from this position was the roof. Had a kid decided to use the roof as a target? He examined the ground carefully for footprints or items that might have tumbled from a pocket when the culprit had run off. The ground was hard-packed and sprinkled with a layer of dry pine needles.

      He jogged down the path in a direction away from Mary’s cottage. There was no one in sight. Still, he continued on to the nearest cottage, where a man in a damp bathing suit, a bad sunburn ringing his neck, was pouring a bag of charcoal into a hibachi. Three kids ranging in age from maybe four to fourteen were fighting over a bag of hot dogs and a plate of buns.

      Luke stopped to ask the man if he’d seen anyone pass by on the path in the last few minutes.

      “Sorry. We were in the cottage,” the man replied.