Final Breath

you mad at me?'

He shook his head, and then shrugged. 'Remember last Friday night, when we went over to Uncle Kyle's and ordered pizza and watched that old movie?'

'North by Northwest?' she asked. Eli had said he'd had a great time that night. She didn't understand why tonight he wanted to act out some hostility toward her--or Kyle--for an evening he seemed to have genuinely enjoyed.

'Yeah,' he said, nodding. 'Anyway, while we were on the roof, I started wondering what it was like to hang off that cliff on Mount Rushmore. So when nobody was looking, I climbed over the railing and lowered myself down--and I guess it was really stupid of me...'

Sydney took her eyes off the road to squint at him for a moment. 'Let me get this straight,' she said. 'You decided to hang from that storm drain so you could feel like Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest?'

'I guess,' he muttered, shrugging.

Sydney resisted all temptation to ask, Are you out of your fucking mind?

She had to remind herself that Eli was an adolescent, and always pushing the envelope. He never walked up or down stairs. He ran--or jumped from one landing to another. It didn't matter how much noise he made or the potential hazards of breaking something--an ankle, leg, or even his neck. If he could leap over something, he leapt over it, and if he could dangle from something, he dangled from it.

His dad knew that about him. It was times like this she really missed her husband. Joe understood Eli. He related to him in a way she never could. She'd foolishly hoped to be both father and mother to Eli here in Seattle, but too often, Sydney realized she was out of her league.

For the rest of the long ride home, she quietly lectured Eli about how he could have gotten himself killed--or gotten her killed. And if someone else at the party had tried to save him, they could have gotten killed. By the time Sydney pulled into the driveway of their apartment complex, Eli was silent and looking miserable.

Wordlessly, he reached up to the sun visor on his side and pressed the automatic opener device.

Sydney stopped the car and waited for the wrought-iron gate to slide open. They lived in Seattle's Madison Park in a charming two-story Tudor town house on Lake Washington. It was part of a group of town houses called Tudor Court. Narrow stone pathways separated all the units. Practically everyone had flower boxes outside their windows, and the blossoms were at their peak this time of year. The pathways--like the driveway--were gated 'to keep out the riff-raff,' as Kyle had once remarked, tongue in cheek. The public beach was only half a block away, and there was a lot of foot traffic in the area, especially in the summertime.

While the gate took its sweet time opening, Sydney glanced at her woeful son again. 'Well, anyway, you're okay, and everyone survived,' she sighed. 'It's not the end of the world. Just don't do it again, honey. Okay?'

'Okay, Mom,' he muttered. 'I--I'll call Uncle Kyle in the morning and tell him I'm sorry.'

Smiling, she reached over and gently patted his shoulder for a moment. Then she straightened up behind the wheel and steered the car into their parking spot--a sheltered alcove without a door. There were four more individual parking stalls on this side of the driveway and five more on the other side.

They climbed out of the car, then started down the stone pathway to their town house. It was a balmy, star- filled night. They could hear people screaming and laughing on the beach down the block. There was an occasional pop from a firecracker. 'Oh, swell,' Sydney muttered, the keys in her hand. 'I'm really looking forward to listening to that all night long.'

She stopped dead at the front door. It was open a crack.

'Eli, did you lock the door when we left for Uncle Kyle's?' she whispered, hesitating on the front stoop. When they'd gotten into the car earlier tonight, he'd suddenly remembered a DVD he'd wanted to return to his uncle, so Eli had run back inside at the last minute.

'Of course, I locked it.' He was staring at the door, too. 'God, you think somebody broke in?'

Sydney took a deep breath, then slowly pushed open the door. It yawned and creaked. The front hallway was dark. She couldn't see anything yet--just shadows.

'I'm almost positive I locked it,' Eli said. 'And I know I left the light on--'

Sydney shushed her son, then wedged herself in front of him. Stepping inside, she nervously felt around for the light switch on the wall. She was shaking again. Someone on the street nearby let off a firecracker, and for a second, her heart seemed to stop. At last, she found the light switch and turned on the hall light.

No one was in the living room. Sydney carefully studied the built-in bookcases and the fireplace mantel. When she'd left Joe, she'd taken some old family knickknacks with her. It was the kind of stuff that would go for a small fortune at an antique store. Everything was still there. Nothing had been disturbed.

Still standing in the foyer, she gazed up the stairs, but could only see as far as the landing. Sydney reached over to the wall near the bottom of the stairs and flicked the switch to the upstairs hallway. She didn't see any shadows moving. There were no footsteps, no floorboards creaking above them. Straight ahead was the coved entrance to the kitchen. The light was off in there. Sydney could hear the refrigerator humming.

She moved into the living room. Behind her, Eli opened the coat closet. He pulled out an umbrella and held it as if it were a club. He headed toward the kitchen.

'Honey, wait,' Sydney whispered. She turned on a lamp in the living room, then peeked past the alcove entry to the dining room. She flicked the switch to the small chandelier over the dinner table. There was an old, built-in, dark wood breakfront with more family antiques--with several sterling-silver items among them. Nothing had been touched.

One the other side of the room, the louvered door to the kitchen was closed. They always kept that door open. Through the slats, she saw the light go on.

'Oh, Jeez,' she heard Eli murmur. 'Mom? Mom, you--ah--you better come in here...'

Scurrying around the table, she pushed open the louvered door.

With the umbrella still clutched in his hands, Eli stood near the kitchen counter. He gaped at her, then looked down at the shards of porcelain on the slate-pattern linoleum floor. Sydney recognized the floral design on the bits of porcelain. It was her teapot, a wedding gift from her favorite aunt. The thing had been chipped and, on the inside, tea-stained despite lots of scrubbings. Still, Sydney had used it every day for the last fourteen years. She'd left it on the dry rack by the sink this morning. Now it was shattered. Some of the porcelain shards had scattered to the far corner of the kitchen, where Sydney had a tall, glass-top cafe table and a pair of stools. Beside it was a framed poster from the 1994 Winter Olympic Games in Lillehammer, signed by the entire U.S. figure-skating team. It was probably worth a pretty penny to some collector. But it hadn't been touched.

Sydney stared down at the broken teapot. 'Did you--' she started to ask her son.

As if reading her mind, he shook his head. 'No, Mom. I didn't touch it, I swear.'

Behind him, a cupboard door was open. A box from the shelf lay on its side, and its contents had spilt onto the counter below. Sydney could see it was a box of Minute Rice. A few grains still trickled from the box's side spout onto the pile of rice that had formed on the green Formica counter. 'What in God's name...' she murmured.

Sydney turned and gazed down the hallway at the back door. It was closed, and the chain-lock set. She poked her head into the powder room, to the left of the back entrance. 'Eli, honey, you forgot to flush--and you left the seat up. That's not like you.'

'What?' he called.

'Never mind,' she said, flushing the toilet and lowering the seat.

Across the hall was a kitchen pantry, which she'd converted into her office. Though the quarters were cramped and a bit claustrophobic, the office had a window with a beautiful view of the lake. If there was anything worth stealing in the house, it was in this room: cameras--both video and still, some sound equipment, a laptop, a fax machine, an iPod station, and a computer with a wide-screen monitor. All of it was still there.

It didn't make sense that only two things--both in the kitchen--had been disturbed.

'Think he's hiding upstairs?' Eli whispered. He still had the umbrella--ready to clobber someone.

They crept up the stairs together and checked her bedroom, Eli's bedroom, and the bathroom. They even peeked in the closets and under the beds.

'Are you sure you didn't leave the door open?' Sydney asked Eli. She kept thinking a squirrel must have gotten in and made that mess in the kitchen.

'I'm positive,' Eli said. 'I remember jiggling the knob to make sure it was locked.'