"—and yet, you could live with a person and love a person for fifteen years, and not know what was behind their eyes."
There was the rattle of glassware, and the friendly sound of a full bottle set down on a table.
Then, timed to the thunder, but much, much closer, a shuddering, animal scream of anguished fear. It was cut off before Norman had sprung to his feet.
As he cleared the angle of the room, he saw Tansy going through the kitchen door. She was a little ahead of him down the back steps.
Light fanned out from the windows of the opposite house into the service yard. It revealed the sprawled body of Totem, head mashed flat against the concrete.
He heard a little sound start and stop in Tansy's throat. It might have been a gasp, or a sob, or a snarl.
The light revealed a little more than the body. He moved so that his feet covered the two prominent scuffs in the concrete just beyond the body. They might have been caused by the impact of a brick or heavy stone, perhaps the thing that had killed Totem, but there was something so suggestive about their relative position that he did not want Tansy's imagination to have a chance to work on them.
She lifted her face. She was never one to show much emotion.
"You'd better go in," he said.