Utterly unconcerned with the tribulations associated with housework, Ming lay contentedly amid the dirty blouses, socks and underwear. The cat purred as it kneaded the mound of clothes. Noticing Alison, Ming yawned and cocked an ear in her direction.

      Alison hated to disturb her, but she had no choice, not if she wanted to wear something clean to tomorrow's celebration at Professor Rhinehart's. "Sorry, puss." She picked Ming up and placed her on the bed. Too somnolent to protest, the Siamese rearranged herself into the shape of a fur-covered meatloaf and fell into a doze.

      After a weeks of neglect, the apartment was a certified mess. Busy researching various aspects of the Crossroads case while working full-time at Light Phantastic, Alison had had little time to pick up after herself. Dishes accumulated in the sink, bills went unpaid and dust bunnies ran rampant across the floor. Unable to stand the disarray any longer and tired of worrying about Joey's problems, she had spent the entire day cleaning up and getting her life into some semblance of order.

      Now it was nearly nine o'clock in the evening, and Alison still had laundry to do before she could think about going to sleep. She wanted to get up early in the morning and drive to Sonoma. Joey's kanzo would be complete by then, and after the congratulatory festivities, he, Claude and she could begin planning the next step in protecting him from Concasseur.

      She was a little worried that she'd heard nothing from the group in Glen Ellen during the past week. Last Sunday, Claude had called to tell her that he and Joey would be incommunicado during the entire length of the retreat into the djevo, from Thursday until the following Sunday morning. Still, the hungan did say that Maurice or Claire might call with progress reports. And now Alison could use some reassurance that everything was all right up at the farmhouse.

      While she was separating the laundry pile into colors and whites, the telephone rang. Eager to catch it before the answering machine switched on, Alison ran to the kitchen and picked up the receiver on the third ring.

      It was her mother, calling from Southern California. She wanted to know whether Alison was coming home for Thanksgiving, just a few weeks away. Not sure of her plans, Alison stalled, begging for an additional week to think about it.

      They talked about her siblings and touched briefly on her break-up with Brad. Mrs. Davis wanted to pursue that topic at length, but Alison cut her off, using the legitimate excuse that she had to get off the phone and start doing her laundry.

      Before ending the conversation, Mrs. Davis said, "By the way, dear, have you been getting my messages? I called twice this week, and I expected to hear from you before now."

      "That's funny. The message indicator hasn't flashed in three or four days. Hold on." Alison rewound the answering machine cassette and hit the PLAY button. The tape rasped for a few seconds, then the machine shut itself off. No messages.

      Puzzled, Alison stared at the machine for a few seconds, wondering what could have gone wrong. Remembering that her mother was still on the line, she finally said, "I don't know what the problem is, Ma. There's no record that you called."

      "You'd better have that machine fixed, then. You're never at home when your father and I want to get hold of you."

      When she hung up, Alison saw that it was already past nine-thirty. It felt like it was after midnight. Grumbling, she threw her sorted clothes into a jumbo-size plastic basket, dug the bottle of liquid detergent out from under the sink and carried everything down to the laundry room in the apartment building's basement.

      Alison hated this room. The pipes dripped, the change machine rarely worked, and the place always smelled of smoldering lint and stagnant water. Most of the occupants of the building were Cal students, and their hygienic diligence sometimes left a lot to be desired. Alison once spotted an obese rat snacking on a discarded bag of fried pork rinds near one of the dryers, and she'd had to throw a sneaker at it before the creature waddled away to its hole.

      Still, this setup beat lugging her clothes halfway across town to some equally disgusting venue. Her building had pretty good security; one needed an apartment key to open the main entrance. That meant the serious nutcases were kept out, which wasn't always true at public laundromats late at night.

      Someone had left a large spray bottle of stain remover on one of the washing machines Alison wanted to use. Alison moved the bottle to the rectangular table bolted to the middle of the floor. She loaded her two sets of laundry, dumped in the recommended quarter-cups of detergent, closed the lids and fed the washers three quarters each.

      Rather than going back to her apartment while the laundry cycled, Alison left the building, walking down Euclid towards Hearst. After being stuck inside most of the day, the cool night air did her good, clearing her head and wiping away her feelings of exhaustion. At LaVal's, a local pizza place, she went in and ordered a mug of beer. She sipped it on the patio, allowing twenty minutes for the washing machines to complete their duties.

      On the way out, she stopped at a pay phone and dialed her own number. After four rings, she heard her recorded voice say, "You have reached Alison Davis at 555-3541. Please leave a message, and I will return your call as soon as I can. Thank you."

      Alison said into the phone, "This is Alison Davis calling herself from a pay phone at ten-fifteen on Saturday night. I'm just checking whether my stupid answering machine is working or not. Bye."

      She walked back to her building and took the stairs down to the basement. The spin cycle was just ending. She removed the clothes from the washers and dumped them into two dryers. She spent another fifty cents to get the dryers going, then walked up to her apartment.

      Fitting the key into the lock, Alison heard a voice from inside. She froze for an instant, then pressed her ear to the door.

      "...from a pay phone at ten-fifteen on Saturday night. I'm just checking whether my stupid answering machine is working or not. Bye."

      Dumbfounded, Alison stood there on the stoop, wondering what the hell she should do. The message ended, and she heard the answering machine rewind itself. Everything was quiet again. She strained to detect any further sign of movement in the apartment, but she heard nothing.

      She quickly unfastened the locks and pushed the door open with all her strength. The knob banged against the adjoining wall, and Alison raced in.

      The apartment was empty.

      Locking the front door behind her, Alison moved cautiously from room to room, checking in closets and behind curtains, finding nothing unusual. The only other occupant of the space proved to be Ming, who roused herself from her slumber in the hope that it might be time to eat again.

      Alison returned to the kitchen and stared at the answering machine. The little green message indicator light glowed steadily, as if no one had called all evening. She hit the REWIND and PLAY buttons. Nothing. The message she had left just minutes ago was gone.

      She lifted the plastic lid to look at the internal recording mechanism. Nothing obvious, like a jammed tape, seemed to be amiss. Then she noticed the tiny, numbered sticker on the lid's underside corner.

      As she realized what was going on, her knees began to shake. She stumbled over to the living room couch and sat down. "Oh, man! How could I be so stupid!"

      It was not a feature she used very often, but Alison's message machine came equipped with a beeperless remote. If away on vacation, for example, she could dial her home number from any Touchtone phone and retrieve her messages. All she had to do was punch in her access code, the single-digit number printed on that sticker under the lid.

      What's more, that access code could be used to erase messages remotely, so that, unless new messages arrived in the meantime, the indicator light wouldn't be flashing the next time she came home.

      For the past week, then, someone had been listening to and eradicating all her telephone messages. There was really only one likely candidate, someone who would have had ample opportunity to inspect the hidden sticker.

      Brad.

      She should have confronted him earlier, as soon as she knew he was somehow involved with Carol Hartinger and Crossroads. She had left messages for him at school and made a half-hearted attempt to find out where he was staying these days, but she just couldn't bring herself to press too hard. The wounds were still too fresh, and she wanted to tell herself that her break-up with Brad didn't matter in the big scheme of things.

      Now she was afraid to imagine what kind of information Brad might have intercepted. Suppose Joey had called and left too much of a clue regarding his whereabouts. Everyone up in Glen Ellen could be in grave danger.

      In the bedroom, she went to her bookcase and removed a paperback edition of "The Occult" by Colin Wilson. On the inside back page, she had scribbled a telephone number. Claude Baribeau had given it to her for use in case of an emergency. She ran with the book to the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialed frantically.

      After one ring, Alison received a phone company recording that said, "We're sorry, but your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and dial again."

      She did just that and got the same response. She called Directory Assistance, but the operator could supply no further information about why she wasn't getting through.

      Alison began choking on hysterical laughter. She bit the inside of her cheek to calm herself down. She was going to have to warn her friends in person.

      She hung up, double-checked all the window locks, tossed some dry food in a bowl for Ming and grabbed a jacket. Car keys in hand, she left the apartment and headed for the stairwell. She was halfway to the building's lobby when she remembered her laundry.

      If she left it in the basement overnight, half of her wardrobe would be missing by morning. It would take only a minute to unload her stuff from the dryer. She could throw everything into the backseat of the car and take it all up to Glen Ellen with her. Sixty seconds weren't going to make a big difference.

      She sprinted down the basement stairs, grabbed her plastic laundry basket on the fly and pulled open the dryers' doors. Some of the clothes still felt slightly damp, but she scooped them all into the basket. No time to worry about mildew now.

      "Hi, Allie," said a familiar voice. "Long time, no see."

      Head halfway into the dryer, Alison banged her skull against the top of the machine. Eyes watering and stars floating at the periphery of her vision, she turned around to face her visitor.

      Brad stood in the laundry room doorway, arms folded across his chest, a big smile on his face.

      She didn't want to show him how scared she was. "How'd you get in here?"

      He held up a key. "Just because I can't get into our -- I mean, your -- apartment anymore, that doesn't mean I can't use this on the lobby door. Works like a charm, Allie."

      She dropped the laundry basket, not wanting it encumbering her if she had to fight her way out of the room. "What do you want?"

      Brad walked forward, taking slow, careful steps. He stopped at the edge of the laundry table. "Not much. I want to take you to meet some people. That's all."

      "Like your great and good friend, Carol Hartinger?"

      "Yeah. People like that."

      Alison reached into her shirt and pulled out the talisman. She brandished it at Brad.

      He laughed at her. "That would freak Carol right out of her everloving mind, Allie. But it doesn't do a thing for me, really. Come on. Let's go."

      Back pressed against the warm dryer, she said, "No. Don't come any closer, or I'll scream."

      He took two steps forward. "I don't recommend it."

      She ran towards him, shrieking at the top of her lungs. Surprised, Brad backpedaled, and that gave Alison time to dodge around to the other side of the laundry table. If she could get out of the room, she at least stood a fighting chance.

      He saw what she was doing and vaulted over the table, cutting her off. She picked up the bottle of stain remover and sprayed him with heavy blasts straight in the face.

      "Aaagghhhh! Shit!" Brad clutched at his eyes.

      He could feel pain! Whatever hold Carol Hartinger had over Brad, he hadn't been turned into a zombie.

      Before Brad could recover, Alison kneed him in the crotch. He doubled over, and Alison clipped him on the chin. He fell to the floor. Alison jumped over him and ran at full tilt for the stairs.

      From the stairwell, she could keep right on going up to her apartment, barricade herself inside and call the police. That was undoubtedly the safest thing to do. But assuming it wasn't already too late, she had to deliver a warning to Claude and Joey in person. So she decided to leave the stairs, head through the lobby and out to the car.

      Closing the door to the stairs behind her, Alison heard pounding footsteps and ragged breathing. Brad was coming after her.

      She was almost at the front door when it swung towards her. Expecting a second attacker, Alison frantically searched for another way out.

      A tall, muscular, curly-haired kid entered the lobby. Alison didn't know his name but had seen him around the building. He lived somewhere on the third floor. The kid started to smile at her, but he must have seen the terror on her face. The grin dropped away.

      Pushing past him, Alison said, "Somebody's chasing me! You've got to help!" She heard the stairwell door open. "Please!"

      Outside, she ran for all she was worth, trying to make it to the parking garage at the front of the building. She prayed the kid in the lobby would slow Brad down. If she could just get to the car...

      The Mazda was in sight, parked heading into the rear corner of the dimly-lit garage. A few more yards and she would be safely behind the wheel. Then she noticed that the driver of the car next to hers had parked sloppily, too close and at an angle. She was hemmed in between the car and the wall.

      She stood there for a second, heart hammering in her throat, unsure of what she should do. Someone outside howled like a wounded animal. The sound made her move again. There was just enough space between her car and the wall for her to slip past, open the passenger door and crawl over the seat, the stick shift and behind the wheel. She slammed and locked the passenger door.

      Alison inserted the ignition key, turned the engine over. She looked over her shoulder and tried to gauge how she could back out of the space without scraping the adjoining wall or banging into the rear end of the absent idiot's Toyota.

      Brad came running into the parking lot, wielding a large metal canister. It took Alison a second to recognize it as the fire extinguisher from her building's lobby. There were blotches of dark liquid on the base of it. She wondered what had happened to the curly-haired kid.

      Brad pitched the extinguisher at the Mazda's rear window. It bounced off, leaving behind a starburst of cracks. Brad reached the car, picked up the canister and raised it over his head. Alison knew the window would probably shatter if struck a second time.

      There was no way to finesse it. She threw the car into reverse and floored the pedal.

      The Mazda scraped against the cinderblock wall and whanged into the Toyota. Brad yelled and rolled out of the way. Metal shrieked and sparks flew. For one awful second, Alison thought for sure that her car would get stuck, but she jockeyed the wheel back and forth until she had smashed her way out of the space.

      She shifted into drive and turned the car so it faced the garage exit. Brad was on his feet again, blocking her path.

      "You can't get away, Allie!" he shouted. "Wherever you go, we'll come and find you!"

      She leaned on the horn. He probably could not hear her, but Alison yelled, "Get out of the way, Brad!"

      He stood there, looking like a survivor of a bomb blast, ragged, bruised and barely sane. Just a few weeks ago, she had been in love with him.

      Brad bent and retrieved the fire extinguisher. "I'm not moving," he taunted her. "You're going to have to run me over, Allie."

      So she did.