But the radiancy had been less concentrated and more random, a ripple of flashes like silver fingernails running up a piano keyboard. Perhaps he’d seen nothing more than a cat, the light a reflection in the feline’s eyes. He slowed the Plymouth to a crawl and threw the headlights on high beam. Rows of tan-colored stucco homes had gelled into a lump of oatmeal, illuminated by moonbeams and blue-white spotlights from corner street lamps. Even a well-populated housing development like this one seemed like a ghost town. In the dark, parked cars looked like giant tortoises, spindly tree boughs became hanging skeletons. At one in the morning, the eyes played tricks. Whatever he’d seen had probably been nothing significant. The guys in the division were always laying odds on what would bust first when the vehicles were returned from service-six-to-one on a leaky radiator, four-to-one on a choked carburetor, three-to-one on the broken air-conditioning system, the odds improving to two-to-one if it was summertime.ĭecker ran his fingers through thick ginger hair. Overworked and underpaid, they’d fix one problem, cause another. If he had a spare minute, he’d check it out himself, haul her onto the lifts and probe her belly. The Plymouth’s alignment was off again, this time pulling to the right. Decker began to cruise down the vacant street, hoping for a second look at what had attracted his attention. The brown unmarked screeched, bucked, then rebelliously reversed directions in the middle of the empty intersection.

He yanked the wheel to the left and braked. The flutter of movement was so slight that had Decker not been a pro, he would have missed it.

Milk and Honey by Faye Kellerman