The house waited.
Couldn't sit in the car all night. Couldn't live in it, for God's
sake.
He drove slowly along the last stretch of driveway and stopped in front
of the garage. He picked up the remote control and pressed the single
button.
The automatic garage door rolled up. Inside the three-vehicle space,
the overhead convenience lamp, which was on a three-minute timer, shed
enough light to reveal that nothing was amiss in the garage.
So much for the power-failure theory.
Instead of pulling forward ten feet and into the garage, he stayed
where he was. He put the Cherokee in Park but didn't switch off the
engine. He left the headlights on too.
He picked up the shotgun from where it was angled muzzle-down in the
knee space in front of the passenger seat, and he got out of the
station wagon. He left the driver's door wide open.
Door open, lights on, engine running.
He didn't like to think that he would cut and run at the first sign of
trouble. But if it was run or die, he was sure as hell going to be
faster than anything that might be chasing him.
Although the pump-action twelve-gauge shotgun contained only five
rounds--one already in the breech and four in the magazine tube--he was
unconcerned that he hadn't brought any spare shells. If he was unlucky
enough to encounter something that couldn't be brought down with five
shots at close range, he wouldn't live long enough to reload, anyway.
He went to the front of the house, climbed the porch steps, and tried
the front door. It was locked.
His house key was on a bead chain, separate from the car keys. He
fished it out of his jeans and unlocked the door.
Standing outside, holding the shotgun in his right hand, he reached
cross-body with his left, inside the half-open door, fumbling for the
light switch. He expected something to rush at him from out of the
night. downstairs hallway--or to put its hand over his as he patted the
wall in search of the switch plate.
He flipped the switch, and light filled the hall, spilled over him onto
the front porch. He crossed the threshold and took a couple of steps
inside, leaving the door open behind him.
The house was quiet.
Dark rooms on both sides of the hallway. Study to his left. Living
room to his right.
He hated to turn his back on either room, but finally he moved to the
right, through the archway, the shotgun held in front of him. When he
turned on the overhead light, the expansive living room proved to be
deserted. No intruder.
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Then he noticed a dark clump lying on the white fringe at the edge of
the Chinese carpet. At first glance he thought it was feces, that an
animal had gotten in the house and done its business right there. But
when he stood over it and looked closer, he saw it was only a caked wad
of damp earth.
