I crossed the hall to our bedroom, moving quickly but silently, adrenaline kicking my heartbeat up to double time. Under the bed among a flurry of dust bunnies lived a long, flat box. Kneeling, awkward with my big belly, I opened the box and slid out the 12-gauge combat shotgun. The thought struck me that soon with a baby in the house we’d need to get a proper gun safe. Here I was worried about gun safety, with a possible intruder downstairs, and a hysterical laugh caught in my throat. I cursed Brody for leaving me alone while he went gallivanting around Alaska with Celeste Fucking Takashima.
Working in the dark, by feel, I groped in the nightstand drawer until my fingers felt the long, narrow metal shaft of a penlight. The light was weak but I was running on instinct and experience, assembling the rifle and sliding the rounds in the dim light as smoothly as I might assemble a sandwich.
Sixty seconds after I’d heard the second thud, I was at the head of the stairs locked and loaded. I kept my finger off the trigger and held the shotgun out in front of me, aimed at the ground but ready to lift at the first target that crossed my way.
I took a deep breath and peeked around the wall and looked down. A deep blackness filled the stairwell. I might have been at the bottom of the ocean for all I could see. Hesitant to use the penlight but knowing I couldn’t safely risk a descent without a quick look, I flicked the light on and off and saw in the second or two of illumination the front door gaping open at the bottom of the stairs.
I flashed the light again and watched as a gust of wind, ice cold and mean, tore in and gripped the door with tendril-like fingers. Caught unawares, the door traveled along the wind’s retreat, slamming back against the wall with another heavy thud.
Had I locked the front door after Tessa left? I thought through my actions of the night and could only remember for certain locking the back door.
“Seamus?” I called out once more and then began walking down the stairs, keeping the gun in front of me like a shield. With each step I felt a tremor make its way down my arm and into my hand. At the bottom, my bare feet took a final step and touched down on wet fabric; the area rug, soaked through from the rain.
I swore and started to close the door then paused and called one last time for Seamus.
He came bounding toward me from the side of the house, his coat soaked, his feet muddy, a ghost-dog in the dim moonlight.
“You dingbat.”
I pulled him in, shut the door and, in the dark, felt for the old towel from the hall closet and rubbed him off. As I dried off the last of his short legs, the house lights flickered and came on.
With Seamus at my heels, and the shotgun in my arms, I made my way through the first floor, room by room, checking windows and closets, taking my time.
There was nothing.
There was no one.
I felt silly, but the front door was heavy and even unlocked, I didn’t think it could blow open without assistance. I double-checked the back door and found it secure.
Upstairs, I repeated my search, room by room. I almost skipped the bathroom, as I’d been in there when the noises had started, but as I passed the half-open door, I noticed something strange.
The bathroom was dark.
I was almost positive I’d left the light on when I had bolted from my bath. I wouldn’t have taken the extra seconds to turn it off. And the power had gone off after I had put on my robe, hadn’t it?
I couldn’t remember.
Weariness fell on me like a cloak and suddenly I was too exhausted to care much.
I had a gun. I was trained. I was tired.
I set the tip of the shotgun against the door and slowly pushed it, swinging it inward, opening it all the way. The air was heavy with the smell of the citrus bath oil. The light from the hall spilled into the small room, revealing the toilet, the sink, the tub with the shower curtain hooked to one wall. In the shadows, they were all soft shapes, safe and domestic.
Familiar.
I leaned in and flipped the light on and stared at the sticky red substance that came off the switch and on to my finger. It was moist but not wet, waxy but not malleable, and as I brought my fingers to my nose, the smell I experienced was similar to that of melted crayons.
I lifted my eyes and saw the message on the bathroom mirror. Written in a tidy print, its author must have been as unhurried in his writing as I had been in my searching of the house:
The next message I leave will be written in your blood. Leave the past in the past if you want to have a future Bitch.
A gold tube of lipstick, the cap removed and the scarlet wax smashed down, rolled to and fro in the sink, a relic from my dating years. It was one of a dozen I kept in an old shoe box in the bathroom cabinet. I watched the tube come to a stop and saw it was Kiss My Face #47, an old favorite, with a sexy color and a name that used to make me laugh: Killing Me Softly Rose.
I sank down to the floor, my legs finally giving out.
Chapter Twenty-five
I couldn’t figure out when the message had been written.
I would have heard the intruder on the stairs, or Seamus would have. That dog still barked at the mailman, and poor Mr. Ellis had done our route for years.
I took a picture of the note with my digital camera, and careful not to touch the edges of the smooth tube, sealed up the lipstick in a plastic baggie. When I held the bag up to the light, I saw faint ridges on the tube from a fingerprint almost touching the small label at the bottom.
I did another round of the house and checked every closet, under the guest bed, and in the garage, pulling out the bikes, camping gear, and stacks of junk that piled up month by month, year by year. There was nothing out of the ordinary. The only disturbing thing I found was a mouse taking the big sleep in an old ski boot.
At midnight, I grabbed a pile of blankets and made up a bed on the living-room couch. I set the gun on the floor, and put my cell phone under the pillow. My sleep was deep, free of dreams, and when I woke, I found myself in a twisted, sweaty heap of blankets and loose cushions.
The rain had stopped sometime around dawn. I stumbled into the kitchen and tripped over Seamus’s water bowl, as I did most mornings, and swore. Later, on the back patio, I sipped from a pot of hot tea and scarfed down a plate of bacon and eggs and toast.
The sun was shining and already the dozen or so puddles of muddy water that dotted the yard like miniature ponds were beginning to dry up. Two matronly robins, their breasts plump and rosy hued, picked at fat worms that had drowned in the storm. Their sharp beaks picked up the thick pink tubes and neatly sucked them down like housewives at an oyster bar.
In the light of day, the sun warming the air and my skin, it was hard to believe the previous night’s events. Other than the lipstick and the photos I’d taken of the message, there was no sign of my visitor. I took a look in the front yard, but the tire treads I saw were my own and those from Tessa’s car.
After a shower and quick check of my e-mail, I locked up and carefully backed out of the driveway. The mud was thick, and the west-facing front of the house was deep in shadows, not yet graced by the sun’s heat.
Driving down the canyon, I saw evidence of the storm’s destruction everywhere. The creek ran fast and high, racing over tree limbs and submerged boulders that two days ago had stood dry. Ahead of me, a silver Honda minivan slowed to a crawl and then carefully maneuvered around a pine tree that lay across the road like a felled giant.
Perched delicately on one of the pine’s limbs, a single crow, its feathers black as ink, bobbed his head up and down into the tree’s nooks and crannies. A pickup truck from the local utility company was parked just beyond the tree, and as I drove by, the driver gave me a halfhearted wave.