No Safe House

Six

“YOU look all freaked-out,” Stuart said to Grace on their way to the house where they were going to find a Porsche. “But believe me, it’s going to be fine. There’s, like, no risk at all.”

“How are you going to start it? Like on TV, you touch some wires together under the steering wheel?”

“Shit, no, that’s totally unrealistic. Like, the guy, he gets under there, finds the wires, and in two seconds he’s got the car going. Doesn’t happen. And even if you could get it to start, how are you supposed to unlock the steering column, right? You need a key for that. In the movies, yeah, maybe you could get the car running, but you could only drive it in a straight line. I hate stupid stuff like that in movies.”

“So you’ve got the key?”

“Not yet.” He patted her thigh with his right hand. “Okay, it’s just up the street here, but we’ll walk up half a block.”

She hadn’t paid much attention to where they were going. But they were on a dead-end street now, in a nice part of town. Well-manicured lawns, mature trees, houses set back from the curb. Big driveways.

“Come on,” Stuart said as she got out of the car slowly. They were a few steps away when the boy stopped suddenly. “Wait here a sec. Forgot something.”

He went back to the Buick, opened the passenger door, put one knee on the seat, and leaned forward, as if rummaging around in the glove box for something. Whatever he found, he tucked it into the front waistband of his jeans and pulled his jacket over it.

“What did you get?” Grace asked when he rejoined her.

“Flashlight,” he said.

He was reading house numbers. He stopped out front of a two-story Colonial. “This is it. Come on. We can’t stand around staring at it. People notice.”

Except there was no one around.

He grabbed her hand and pulled her up the drive. There was one light on over the front door, another at the side of the house, but he was pretty sure no one from any neighboring houses could see them.

“Whose place is this?” she asked.

“Somebody named Cummings or something. What a name. Someone says, Who are you? you say, I’m Cumming. And they say, Oh, you that happy to see me?” He snorted. “Let’s double-check the garage first, make sure it’s there, that we haven’t come here for nothing.” He tightened his grip on her wrist.

A garage big enough for two cars was around back, attached to the house. Four rectangular windows ran horizontally along the door at eye level. “I just want to make sure,” he said.

He reached into his jacket for his cell phone, used the app that turned it into a light, and put it up to a window.

“I thought you went back for a flashlight,” Grace said.

“Jackpot,” he said, staring into the garage. “Can you see that? Look in there.”

She looked. “I see a car.” Two, actually. A plain white four-door sedan and a low two-door sporty number in red.

“That’s not a car,” the boy said. “That’s a 911. A goddamn Carrera. Now we just have to get inside and get the keys.”

For the first time, Grace was starting to think this was a really, really bad idea. Her stomach started to float. “I don’t think so. I don’t like this.”

“I told you, it’s okay. They’re away. We get in without tripping the alarm. Word is, they’ve got a dog — they’ve got it boarded or something for the week — but it means they won’t have motion detectors inside. Stupid pets set them off all the time.”

She wrenched her wrist from his grip. “No. No way.”

He whirled around. “What are ya gonna do? Walk home? Do you even know where we are? You gonna sit on the curb till I get back? Come on. I wasn’t able to get the key or find the pass code with my dad’s stuff, but that’s okay — we’ll get in through a basement window.”

Grace’s phone dinged. Another text from her father.

“Your old man again?”

She nodded, then put the phone away as he turned away from her and knelt by a basement window.

“The sensor should be in the corner here,” he said. He kicked in the glass. Grace jumped, put both hands to her mouth. “Just sounds loud because you’re standing there. No one’ll hear that. And there’s carpet on the basement floor.” Shards of glass lined the edge of the frame like sharks’ teeth. “I could fit through here, but I’d bleed to death after.”

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and came out with a credit card that had a couple of short pieces of duct tape stuck to it, and then something shiny about the size of a matchbook. He looked back at the girl, unfolded the shiny item, and grinned. “Tin foil. We just slip that over the contact and hold it in place...”

He had his hand inside the window, working on the upper right corner.

“... and now, when we open the window, the alarm does... not... go... off.” His arm still snaked into the house, he cranked open the window, creating a larger opening, without any shards to catch him on the way in. “I gotta be honest — that’s the part that always scares me. I was ready to run if I had to.”

He dropped his legs in first, supporting himself with his elbows, then dropped about a foot. “Piece of cake,” he said. “Come on.”

She felt chilled, even though the summer night air hadn’t dipped below seventy. She tilted her head back, scanned the heavens. Despite the light pollution, she could make out stars. She remembered the telescope she used to have when she was a little girl. How she used to study the stars from her bedroom window, searching for asteroids, worried one of them would strike and wipe out her and her parents.

The whole planet, too. But once you’d lost your whole family, the rest of the world seemed incidental.

Lost families. Something of a theme in her household.

And now her family was less than whole, what with her mom living in an apartment in an old house on the other side of Milford. Grace thought she’d have moved back by now, but nope. Was she trying to make a point, staying away this long? Was all this talk that she needed some time to “get her head together” the truth, or just some bullshit story to cover up the fact that she just didn’t love Grace and didn’t want to be in the same house with her?

Not that things weren’t a little more calm these days, with just her dad at home.

Her mom was so uptight, so worried some calamity would befall her daughter. Freaking out all the time. Wanting to know where she was every second of the day. Who she was seeing. Making her phone home every couple of hours. Wasn’t that all supposed to be over? Years ago? After her mom had finally found out the truth about what had happened to her when she was a teenager?

Well, I’m fourteen now, Grace thought. How long was this going to go on? Would her mom want her to wear one of those ankle bracelets when she went to college so she could monitor her every move?

Grace sometimes thought her mother had her so convinced something awful would happen to her that she just wanted to get it over with. Bring it on. The anticipation was always worse than the event.

Was that, Grace wondered, why she was with this boy now, about to do something very stupid? Because it would create some kind of crisis, force her mother to come home?

That’s nuts. Like I want my mom to find out about this.

“Hey!” Stuart whispered, his head framed in the window. “You coming or what?”

She got on her knees, back to the window, and worked her legs through. The boy grabbed hold of her and eased her down gently.

“Don’t turn on any lights,” he said.

“Like that’s the first thing I’m gonna do,” she said.

They were in a basement rec room. Leather couch, two recliners, big flat-screen TV bolted to the wall. They crossed the carpet, glass crunching underfoot, and found their way to the stairs.

From what she could see, it was a nice house. Modern furniture and decorations, plenty of leather and aluminum and glass. Not like her house. Her parents bought used, sometimes went to Ikea in New Haven.

“Aren’t the people gonna know someone was here when they find the window broken?” Grace asked.

“So what? Won’t matter then.” He still had his phone in flashlight mode, guiding them through the house. “People usually keep their car keys somewhere near the front door, like in a drawer or a dish or something.” They’d reached the front hall, where a long, narrow table with four drawers was pushed up against the wall.

“Yeah,” he said. “This’ll be the spot. I can guarantee it.”

He pulled open the first one, held the illuminated phone over it. “Just gloves and shit here.”

When he pulled on the handle of the second drawer, it stuck, and he bumped himself with his hand as it broke free.

Something heavy hit the marble floor.

“What was that?” Grace asked.

“I just dropped something.”

“What the — is that a gun?”

“No, it’s a tuna fish sandwich. The hell you think it is?”

“You keep a fucking gun in your car?”

“It’s not my car, and it’s not my gun. It’s my dad’s. Hold it for me while I do this.”

“I’m not holding—”

“Just fucking do it!” Stuart said, shoving the gun at her. “You’re starting to be a total pain in the ass — you know that?”

“What are you gonna do? Shoot somebody?”

“No, but if somebody tries to mess with us, they’ll think twice when they see this.”

She still resisted as he pushed the gun on her, but she could tell he was getting angry. Would he hurt her if she didn’t hold it? Punch her in the face? How would she explain that when she got home? A bloody nose, a black eye?

“Okay,” Grace said.

The gun was heavy and warm and foreign in her hand. She couldn’t remember ever holding one before. It felt as if it weighed fifty pounds, pulling her arm toward the floor.

“Just don’t put your finger on the trigger,” he said. “You have to know what you’re doing before you start shootin’ one of those.”

“Like you do,” she said. “Like you’re some sort of expert.”

“Don’t turn all bitchy on me, okay? Shit, no keys in this drawer, either.” He opened the third one and shook his head. “Damn, where do they keep those friggin’ Porsche keys? It just makes sense for them to be—”

“Did you hear that?” Grace asked.

Stuart froze. “Hear what?”

“Shut up,” she said. “Listen.”

The two of them held their breath for a good ten seconds.

“I don’t hear anything,” he whispered. “What did you hear?”

“I thought I heard somebody moving around. Like a floor creaking or something.” Without thinking about it, she tightened her grip on the gun, but kept it pointed at the floor.

“You’re just imagin—”

He stopped. He’d heard something, too.

“Shit,” he said, looking toward the kitchen.

Grace moved toward the front door. On the wall, just next to it, the security keypad, a small green light glowing.

Green? Doesn’t that mean—?

“No!” Stuart hissed. “Open that and the alarm’ll go off!”

“But the light is—”

“The noise sounded like it was in here,” he said quietly, moving on the balls of his feet toward the kitchen.

“No!” she whispered after him. “Let’s go.” She was thinking, even if they went out the front door, and the alarm was set to go off, and it did, they could still get to his car before the police or the security company showed up.

“It’s probably nothing. I’m not runnin’ out of here for no good reason. We’re gonna find those keys.”

He held his phone at arm’s length, casting light on the floor head of him.

“Please,” Grace said.

“Stay close to me,” he said, inching forward, reaching out an encouraging hand to her.

“I’m scared.”

He grinned. “You’re the one with the gun, Grace. What’s there to be worried about?”