*
Chyna backed the motor home off the driveway and alongside the front of the house, parallel to the porch and as close to it as she could get. She let the big vehicle roll slowly, anxious not to tear up the thick grass, because under it the ground might be muddy even half a day after the rain had stopped. She didn’t dare bog down.
When she was in position, she put the vehicle in park and set the emergency brake. She left the engine running.
In the short hall at the back of the motor home, the stepstool had fallen over. She put it upright, climbed the two steps, and stood with her head in the night air, above the open frame of the broken-out skylight.
She wished the stool had a third step. She needed to muscle herself out of the hallway, and she was at a less advantageous angle than she would have liked.
She placed her hands flat on the roof on opposite sides of the twenty-inch-wide rectangular opening and struggled to lever her body out of the motor home. She strained so hard that she could feel the tendons flaring between her neck and shoulders, her pulse pounding like doomsday drums in her temples and carotid arteries, every muscle in her arms and across her back quivering with the effort.
Pain and exhaustion seemed certain to thwart her. But then she thought of Ariel in the living-room armchair: rocking back and forth, hugging herself, a faraway look in her eyes, her lips parted in what might have been a silent scream. That image of the girl empowered Chyna, put her in touch with hitherto unknown resources. Her shaking arms slowly straightened, pulling her body out of the hallway, and inch by inch she kicked her feet as if she were a swimmer ascending from the depths. At last her elbows locked with her arms at full extension, and she heaved forward, out through the skylight, onto the roof.
On the way, her sweater caught on small fragments of plastic that bristled from the skylight frame. A few jagged points pierced the knit material and stung her belly, but she broke loose of them.
She crawled forward, rolled onto her back, hiked her sweater, and felt her stomach to see how badly she had been cut. Blood wept from a couple of shallow punctures, but she wasn’t hurt seriously.
From far off in the night came the howls of at least two injured dogs. Their pathetic cries were so filled with fear, vulnerability, misery, and loneliness that Chyna could hardly bear to listen.
She eased to the edge of the roof and looked down at the yard to the east of the house.
The uninjured Doberman trotted around the front of the motor home and spotted her at once. It stood directly under her, gazing up, teeth bared. It seemed unfazed by the suffering of its three comrades.
Chyna moved away from the edge and got to her feet. The metal surface was somewhat slippery with dew, and she was thankful for the rubber tread on her Rockports. If she lost her footing and fell off into the yard, with no weapons and no protective clothing, the one remaining Doberman would overwhelm her and tear out her throat in ten seconds flat.
The motor home was only a few inches below the edge of the porch roof. She had parked so close that the distance between the vehicle and the house was less than a foot.
She stepped up and across that gap, onto the sloped roof of the porch. The asphalt shingles had a sandy texture and weren’t nearly as treacherous as the top of the motor home.
The slope wasn’t steep either, and she climbed easily to the front wall of the house. The recent rain had liberated a tarry scent from the numerous coats of creosote with which the logs had been treated over the years.
The double-hung window of Vess’s second-story bedroom was open three inches, as she had left it before departing the house. She slipped her aching hands through the opening and, groaning, shoved up on the bottom panel. In this wet weather, the wood had swollen, but although it stuck a couple of times, she got it all the way open.