Becky gathered up some socks, underwear, two T-shirts, a skirt, and a bra that had been scattered across the bedroom floor. She was a horrible slob whenever she had the house to herself. Worse than she’d been in college, for some reason she couldn’t figure out. “So why do you keep watching it?”
“Ehh. Marty really likes it. He won’t admit it, but I just think he likes all the boobs. Are you guys still watching?”
She walked to the bathroom, and shoved the armload of clothes into the hamper. The bathroom was a mess, too. Her yoga clothes and more underwear. How had she gone through so much underwear in four days? “We’re a couple episodes behind, but yeah,” she said. “I think he likes the boobs, too. And the dragons.”
Becky put her foot in the trash can and mashed down the small pile of bathroom trash, just enough so it didn’t look like it was overflowing. “We were talking about doing a DVR marathon this weekend. Something to relax a bit after his trip.”
“When’s he get back?”
“His plane landed a little while ago,” she said. “He sent me a text saying he had to stop at the office and give a quick report to his boss. Probably be home any minute now.”
“Cleaning up your mess?”
She laughed. “You know me too well.”
“I should let you go, then.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Give me a call next week,” Denise said. “Maybe we can all do dinner at that new Japanese place.”
“Okay.”
She hung up and tossed the phone on the bed. She looked around and tried to spot anything else he could tease her for leaving out. There was a wineglass on her nightstand, and a plate with a few cheesecake crumbs. And another wineglass on her dresser. God, she was a slob. And a lush.
It crossed her mind now and then that she should try to be one of the good wives. The ones who kept the house clean, and had dinner waiting for her husband when he came home. When they’d met, she’d actually been dressed as a 1950s housewife at a Halloween party, complete with martini glass, apron, and a copy of an old Good Housekeeping list of duties she was supposed to perform. He’d laughed, said she didn’t look like the kind of woman who sat around waiting on a husband, and bought her a drink. They’d ended Halloween night with a few things that were not covered in the Good Housekeeping article. Fourteen months later they were married.
She gathered up the glasses and the plate. She could swing by her art studio in the back and grab the dishes there. There was definitely a plate next to her computer from today’s lunch, possibly a wineglass from last night. She could rinse them in the sink, maybe.
As she reached the studio door, a faint rasp of sliding metal echoed from the front of the house. A key in a lock. There was a click, and then the hinge squeaked. They’d been trying to fix that damned thing for years.
The front door.
“Hey, babe,” she called out, setting all the dishes down on the desk. “How was your flight?” Ah, well. He wouldn’t notice them right away in the studio. And it wasn’t like he didn’t know her by now. She took a few steps toward the hall, then decided to take the back staircase. It was closer, and she’d probably meet him in the kitchen.
Something tickled her brain as her foot hit the first step. The lack of something. The usual chain of sounds she heard when Ben got home had been broken. She hadn’t heard the hinge squeak again, or the door close. Or his keys hitting the table in the front hall.
“Babe?”
She lifted her foot from the step and walked back down the hall. From the top of the staircase she could see their front door. It sat open by almost a foot. She could smell the lawn outside and hear the traffic heading for the beltway.
Ben wasn’t there. She didn’t see his keys on the table. His briefcase wasn’t shoved under the table where he always tossed it.
Becky took a few steps down the stairs. She peered over the banister to see if he was lurking in the hall. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d leaped out to scare her.
The hallway was empty.
She walked downstairs to the front door. It hung open in a relaxed, casual way. The same way it did when she was heading out to grab the mail or to growl at Pat from down the street for letting her dog crap on their lawn.
Had she left the door open when she went out for the mail earlier? Maybe just enough for the wind to push it open? Had she imagined the sound of the key? Ben was due home any minute. She might’ve just heard the hinge squeak and added everything else.
She leaned out the door. It was cool. This late in the afternoon, the front of the house was in the shade.
Ben’s car was in the driveway. It was right where it always landed, in front of the nearer garage door. She could see a faint shimmer of heat above the hood.
Becky pushed the door shut. The hinges squeaked. The latch clicked.
“Are you in here, babe?”
Floorboards settled. The air in the house shifted. Someone was in the kitchen. She recognized the creak of the tiles near the dishwasher.
“Ben?” His name echoed in the house. She took a few strides toward the back of the house. “Where are you?”
The silence slowed her down, then brought her to a stop.
“If this is supposed to be funny, it’s not.”
Nothing.
She weighed her options. There was still a chance this was a trick. A joke gone bad. Ben would leap out and make her shriek and she’d hit him and then welcome him home.
It didn’t feel like a trick. The house felt wrong. Ben’s car might be in the
