Free In the Dark of the Night by John Saul Page B

was there, it was gone.
    Moxie continued to bark for another moment or two, then fell silent, and Eric could barely make him out, squatting at the edge of the lake. Finished with his business, the dog gave one more bark, then ran back up to Eric.
    “Got that out of your system?” Eric asked, and picking the little dog up, carried him back inside the house. “Whatever it was, Mighty Moxie chased it off,” he announced.
    But later, as he was going to bed, Eric found himself gazing out the window at the lake, searching once more for the boat he thought he’d seen.
    Where had it come from? It hadn’t been there earlier, when he was talking to Cherie just before he came in for a piece of pie.
    Or maybe he hadn’t seen it at all.
    Except he had.
    He knew he had.
                      
    T HE MEMORY OF Eric Brewster was as vivid in Cherie Stevens’s mind as she turned the corner onto Spruce Street and started up the last block toward her house as it had been when she’d walked away from the Moslers’ boat, leaving Adam to tie it up himself.
    Adam Mosler! How could she ever have thought that he might actually qualify as a boyfriend? Although to be absolutely fair, until tonight she hadn’t realized just how much of a jerk he could be.
    But Eric Brewster—now, he was something else. Even in the fading light of dusk she’d seen how cute he was, and though she hadn’t been quite able to tell for sure, she was still certain his eyes were blue. And not just any old blue, either, but the exact shade of turquoise that was her favorite color. All during the walk home from the marina—all eight blocks of it—she’d replayed the short conversation she’d had with Eric. He was so different from the boys at Phantom Lake, and the way he’d refused to rise to Adam’s bait—or sink to his level—was so perfect. And she could just imagine how Adam and whoever had been with him must have treated Eric. But who had it been? Probably Chris McIvens, who could be just as much of a creep as Adam.
    Cherie glanced at her watch as she came to her house, and quickened her step as she realized how late it had gotten. Seeing her father sprawled out on the couch with a beer in his hand, she braced herself for whatever mood he might be in.
    Or whatever mood the beer had put him in.
    “’Bout time you got yourself home,” Al Stevens growled as she opened the screen door and stepped into the living room. “Where you been?”
    “Out with Adam Mosler. I called. Didn’t Mom tell you?”
    “Your mother’s gone to work—it’s late.” He glared balefully at her. “Too late for you to be out with a boy.”
    “It’s not that late, Dad,” Cherie began. “It’s summer—”
    “Don’t matter,” he cut in, his eyes shifting back to the TV. “Get yourself to bed.”
    Cherie opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. “Okay. I’m sorry.” Going to her room, she took off her blue and white striped uniform, checked the closet to make sure she had a fresh one for tomorrow, then tossed the one she’d just taken off into the hamper. She dropped a thin nightie over her head, went down the hall to the bathroom to wash and cream her face and brush her teeth, then flopped onto her bed and called Kayla Banks, intending to tell her every detail of her encounter with Eric Brewster.
    Kayla’s cell phone rang seven times before a sleepy voice spoke. “Hello?”
    “Were you asleep?”
    “Yeah, I guess,” Kayla sighed. “What time is it?”
    “Not that late,” Cherie told her. “Listen—I met the guy whose family rented Pinecrest. His name’s Eric Brewster, and he’s cute! I mean, like,
really
cute.”
    Abruptly, the sleep was gone from Kayla’s voice. “Where? How’d you meet him?”
    “I went for a ride with Adam in his dad’s boat, and we pulled up to the Pinecrest dock.”
    “Adam Mosler?” Kayla asked. “Why were you out with him? You always said he was a jerk.”
    “Don’t ask,” Cherie groaned.