responsibility for his mistakes.”
I shifted restlessly on the chaise, still peering at the second floor.
There was no movement. The lights were still on but there were no more shadows.
I relaxed slightly and was about to rejoin the conversation when a silhouette darted past the window. And then it reappeared, just a shadow, crouched down as if it didn’t want to be seen.
I couldn’t make out who it was, but it had the shape of a man, and it was wearing what looked like a suit.
And then it disappeared again.
Involuntarily, I looked back at Robby and the babysitter and Sarah.
But maybe it wasn’t a man, I automatically thought. Maybe it was Jayne.
Confused, I sat up and craned my neck to look behind me into the Allens’ kitchen, where Nadine and Sheila were filling bowls with raspberries and Jayne was standing at the counter pointing out something in a magazine to Mimi Gardner, both of them laughing.
I slowly reached for the cell phone in the pocket of my slacks and I hit speed dial.
I saw the exact moment that Wendy’s head bobbed up from the book she was reading to Sarah, and she carried her to the cordless phone hanging near the pool table. Wendy waited for whoever it was to leave a message.
The silhouette appeared again. It was now framed by the window and simply standing there.
It had stopped moving when it heard the phone ringing.
“Wendy, it’s Mr. Ellis, pick up,” I said into the machine.
Wendy immediately lifted the receiver to her ear, balancing Sarah in her arm.
“Hello?” she asked.
The silhouette was staring into the Allens’ yard.
“Wendy, do you have a friend over?” I asked as carefully as possible.
I swung a leg—it was tingling—off the chaise and looked back down into the media room, at the three of them there, oblivious to whoever was upstairs.
“No,” Wendy said, looking around. “No one’s here but us.”
I now stood up and was moving unsteadily toward the house, the ground wobbling beneath me. “Wendy, just get the kids out of there, okay?” I said calmly.
The silhouette continued to stand in front of the window, backlit, featureless.
I ignored the inquiries from the men behind me as to where I was going and walked along the side of the Allens’ house and unlatched a gate, and then I was on the sidewalk, where I still had a view of the second-story window through the newly planted elms that lined Elsinore Lane.
As I got closer to the house I suddenly noticed the cream-colored 450 SL parked out front at the curb.
And that’s when I saw the license plate.
“Mr. Ellis, what do you mean?” Wendy was asking me. “Get the kids out of the house? What’s wrong?”
At that instant, as if it had been listening, the silhouette turned from the window and disappeared.
I froze, unable to speak, then moved up the stone path toward the front door.
“Wendy, I’m outside the front door,” I said calmly. “Get the kids outside, now. Do it now.”
Victor kept barking from somewhere out back, and then the barks turned to howls.
I started knocking on the door rapidly until it became pounding.
Wendy opened the door, startled, still holding Sarah, who smiled when she saw me. Robby was standing behind them, apprehensive and pale.
“Mr. Ellis, no one’s in the house but us—”
I pushed her aside and walked into the office, where I opened the safe in a matter of seconds and grabbed the small handgun, a .38 caliber, I kept there, and then, breathing heavily and dizzy from all the grass, tucked the gun into the waistband of my slacks so as not to frighten the kids. I began moving toward the staircase.
But I stopped as I passed the living room.
The furniture had been rearranged again.
Footsteps stamped in ash crisscrossed the entire space.
“Mr. Ellis, you’re scaring me.”
I turned around. “Just get the kids outside. It’s okay. I just want to check something.”
Saying that made me feel stronger, as if I was in control of a situation I probably wasn’t. Fear had been transformed into lucidity and calmness, which in retrospect I realize came from smoking Mark Huntington’s grass. Otherwise I wouldn’t have acted so recklessly, or even thought about confronting whatever it was in the master bedroom. What I felt walking up those stairs was, I had been expecting this. It was all part of a narrative. Adrenaline was smoothly pumping through me yet I wasn’t moving quickly. My steps were slow and deliberate. I kept gripping the railing, letting it assist in my ascension. I felt so neutral I might as well have been in a trance.
At the top of the stairs I turned. It was dark in the hall leading to the master bedroom, and it was silent. But my eyes soon adjusted, and the corridor took on a purplish tint. The strength it took to walk through that hall came solely from a rising panic.
“Hello?” I called out into the darkness, my voice vibrating hoarsely. “Hello?”
I kept saying this as I moved down the hall toward the door at the end of it.
A sconce flickered and then dimmed as I passed it.
Another one followed suit.
And then I heard something. A shuffling sound. It came from behind the door of the master bedroom.
And from where I was standing in the middle of the darkened hallway, I saw, in the gap below the door, the band of light go black.
And then I heard giggling.
I moaned. The giggling continued from behind the door.
But it was giggling disconnected from humor.
The sconces had stopped flickering, and the only light in the hallway was the moon flooding through the large window that looked over the backyard. I could see Victor sitting on his haunches, staring intently at the house, as if he was standing watch (
The giggling turned into a high-pitched squeal.
I blindly made my way toward the master bedroom; I couldn’t see anything. I was letting the wall I was leaning against guide me toward it. I was only a couple steps away when I heard the door opening.
“Hello? Who is it? Hello?” My voice was toneless. I reached under my shirt for the gun.
The squealing had stopped.
In the darkness the door opened and something rushed out.
It was padding toward me but I couldn’t see anything.
“Hey!” I yelled, then it leapt into the air and flew by me.
I spun around, flailing at it.
And then the door to Robby’s room slammed shut.
I was now holding the gun by my side and felt my way in the darkness, once again relying on the wall, until I was at Robby’s door.
“Mr. Ellis?” I heard Wendy call. “What’s going on? You’re frightening the kids.”
“Call the police,” I shouted, making sure the thing in Robby’s room could hear me. “Call 911 now, Wendy. Just do it!”
“Dad?” This was Robby.
“It’s okay, Robby, everything is okay. Just get outside.” I tried to keep my voice from wavering.
I breathed in and slowly opened Robby’s door.
The room was completely dark except for the screen-saver moon glowing from the computer. The window looking onto Elsinore Lane was open.
I thought I sensed movement in the room and about four steps inside I heard something breathing raggedly.
“Who are you?” I shouted. Fear was crawling through me. I had no idea what to do. “I have a fucking gun,” I
