I could have continued reading. I could have read the entire thing in one night, in one sitting, but I didn't want to. It had felt like Gran was telling me these stories herself, and the longer I had these new stories, the longer I could savor them. The longer I could feel like there was still a part of my grandmother I could come to know as I hadn't when she was alive.

I set the diary aside to finish the last couple bites of Gran's homemade chicken and noodles. It had been a long day, and I was still tired from my cross-country trip and the general stress of the past several weeks, but it was only nine. If I went to bed now, I would be up at five in the morning.

I made myself a cup of cocoa. Without fresh milk, I had to settle for hot water and the powdered stuff from Gran's pantry. Then I settled down in the living room with a blanket and an Agatha Christie novel from Gran's bookshelf. I liked a good Christie novel. They were clever and cozy, the time period setting them at a safe remove from the modern world and its true crime horrors, and they ended with all of their loose ends neatly tied up.

Porkie came snuffling over and sat down in front of the couch, looking up at me with her big walleyes. She snorted once, then stood up again and pawed at the couch. I put my cup aside and leaned down to pick her up. She was heavier than she looked.

"We should get you a ramp," I said as the dog found a choice spot by my feet. "It's either that or acrobatics training. I could strain my back getting you up here."

We lapsed into companionable silence, Porkie with her head on her small paws and me with my book on my knees. I read a couple of chapters, sipping my cocoa and trying my damnedest to stay awake even though my eyelids were growing heavier and heavier.

That's when I heard the scream.

The sound passed through my body from the crown of my head to the tips of my toes in an icy-cold wave that left my fingers numb on the pages of my book.

Porkie's head whipped up, her small, soft ears perked. She stared toward the back of the house, a soft growl rumbling in her throat. Her hackles were raised.

It had sounded like a woman. A woman in trouble.

I was terrified. I was a woman alone in a huge house in the middle of nowhere, far removed from the small town of Myrtle. There was no one close enough to hear and to help if I was in danger.

Danger.

That scream.

What if something happened to somebody out there, and I didn't do anything to help?

I set my book aside and stood up, jostling Porkie as I pulled my feet away. My phone was plugged in near the toaster in the kitchen. As soon as I reached it, I fumbled it off the charge, staring out into the back yard through the kitchen window. All of the lights in the house were off except for the reading lamp in the living room, which made it easy to see out into the darkness.

There was nothing to see. The yard was empty under a faint wash of moonlight, the black forest that surrounded Gran's property crowding in around the house, closer in the night than it had been during the day.

Had it really been a scream?

This house was ancient. Maybe it had been a creak as it settled. It might have been a noise from the refrigerator, or even a wheezing breath from Porkie. No, that didn't make sense, because the noise had surprised Porkie, too. But maybe my distant mind, absorbed in the novel I'd been reading and slipping down into sleep, had taken some completely normal night life sound and twisted it into—

The scream came again.

I was paying attention this time, standing right there at the kitchen window, staring out into the back yard, and I heard it very clearly.

It was a woman's scream. And it was coming from out there in the darkness.

I looked at the kitchen door. It was locked. My mother's warnings hadn't gone completely unheeded.

My hands shaking, I dialed 911.

"911. What is your emergency?" A calm, competent female voice.

"Hello. This is Tabitha Carter and I'm out on Red Oak Road. 1612, Red Oak Road. I just heard a woman screaming outside."

"You heard a woman screaming?"

"Yes. I've heard it twice now and it's coming from outside. A scream."

"You said your location is 1612 Red Oak Road, ma'am?"

"Yes."

"You heard a scream from outside of your house? Have you seen anything?"

"No. I mean, obviously there's somebody out there, but I haven't seen them." I leaned forward, peering into the darkness, although I had no true sense of where the scream had come from. "I'm looking out my window, and nothing. I need to go out there, right?"

"No, ma'am. Please stay inside. We're dispatching a unit to your location. Is there anyone there at the house with you?"

"No. Just my dog."

"So you're at the house alone?

"Yeah."

"Do you know who you might have heard?"

"No, I—how long will it be?"

"It won't be long. We've got someone on the way."

"She could be hurt. She could be in trouble." I was already hunting in my grandmother's junk drawers—she had two of them—in search of a flashlight. My hands weren't working very well. "I can't just leave her out there."

"I would advise you to stay inside, ma'am. Don't put yourself in danger. Help will arrive soon, and they'll figure out what's happening. Do you know who you might have heard outside?"

"You don't want me to see if I can help?" I hadn't even seen anything and I felt cold and breathless with fear.

The 911 dispatcher was still completely calm, her tone reasonable. "You can't see what's happening, so you don't know if you're able to help. It's best if you stay where you are to keep yourself safe. Help will be there soon, Tabitha."

"But I—"

"Listen to me. I'll stay on the line with you until the police arrive. If you happen to see something, we can reassess based on the situation. Alright? Take a deep breath."

I wanted to be annoyed with her for telling me to breathe. Colson used to do that when I was stressed out about something, and it always pissed me off. But I took the deep breath and retreated from the kitchen into the dining room, flashlight forgotten. I sat at the table, a hand in my hair.

"Ma'am?" the dispatcher asked. "Are you still with me?"

"Yeah."

"Do you have any idea who it was you might have heard?" she asked for about the seventeenth time.

"No! I don't know who it is. I'm home alone and I haven't seen anybody around here except—" My heart plummeted. Anabel. "Oh my God, it's Anabel."

I was racing out into the cool, late spring night in five seconds flat, my ratty flip flops on my feet. As I crossed the porch, I realized that I had left the flashlight inside. There was a broom propped against the house just before the stairs down into the yard, and I grabbed it on my way down. I could still hear the dispatcher's voice buzzing from my hand.

I lifted my phone to my ear again. "Hello?"

"Ma'am? Tabitha? What's going on?"

"I think it might have been my friend. Not my friend, this—this girl I met today who came by the house." I spoke in a whisper, moving into the yard, cold grass licking my feet. I peered through the darkness, seeking any sign of motion.

The dispatcher seemed to have given up on her request that I stay inside. "Listen, they're about three minutes out. Was Anabel with you at the house?"

Crickets were singing, and I could hear background noise from the dispatcher's end, but that was all. I turned slowly, scanning the yard around me for any sign of movement, afraid that I was too late. Whatever had happened to Ana had already happened. I'd been afraid and I'd wasted time.

"Anabel?" I called, my voice hoarse with uncertainty. I drew a breath and called more loudly, more clearly: "Ana! Are you out there?"

Silence.

I made a circuit of the house, completely without a frame of reference for how distant that scream must have been. I hadn't seen anything from the kitchen window, so it must have been farther away. When I found nothing in the yard around the house, I started toward the tree line.

"Tabitha!"

The dispatcher had been speaking, but I didn't know what she had been saying.

"I'm still here. I'm sorry. I'm just looking in the yard."

"Okay. Just stay on the line with me." I could hear her disapproval.

"People usually listen to you, huh?" I asked softly, a nervous laugh vibrating in my voice. I knew this wasn't something to joke about, but I was grasping with both hands for something to keep me steady as I walked through the yard toward whatever was waiting for me. "You're like, Stay inside, and I'm like, No way, I'm going out into the—frickin'—Iowa wilderness in the dark. Believe me, I can't believe I'm out here."

"I don't blame you if you think you heard your friend. Was she at the house with you?"

"No. I mean, I saw her leave after she visited today. I didn't see her come back. It's just, she's the only person who's been here, except for a landscaper who came by, and he wouldn't have screamed like that. It was a woman. I'm pretty sure."

"The police will be there very soon. Don't go too far from the house, please. They need to be able to find you."

As if on cue, I heard tires on gravel. Turning, I made out the haze of headlights through the edge of the tree line and then saw the dark shape of a car behind them. When it turned into the driveway, Gran's street light illuminated the black-and-white body of the police cruiser. "Okay, they're here."

"Alright. They'll help you. You take care, Tabitha."