She felt disoriented for a moment, but then realized where she was. She’d been sitting up, waiting for Tag to come home, but must have dozed off. The book she’d been reading lay open in her lap, and her small living room was lit only by the reading lamp behind her chair, which she’d turned on as the evening light began to fade. She felt stiff, all her joints aching from the hours she’d spent in the chair, and she slowly began stretching her limbs as the last vestiges of sleep released their hold on her. At last she peered at her watch. Almost one A.M. She must have slept for nearly four hours. She hauled herself to her feet and started toward the stairs, but then stopped. The house had an empty feeling to it. She was almost certain that Tag still hadn’t come home. The knot of worry that had been growing within her all evening now congealed into fear—Tag had never stayed out this late, and certainly never disappeared for so long without telling her where he was going. And surely, if he’d come home, he’d have seen her in the chair and wakened her.
