The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes

Thirty-two

On Stapleton Terrace, the neighbors’ minivan was parked at the curb. No little Hyundai stood next to it, no Lincoln Town Car hogged the driveway.

He kept going, turned left at the corner, turned left again.

He’d circled the block on an earlier visit. The houses here on this street were all single-family units, with several sporting For Sale signs. One had looked unoccupied, and he was not surprised to find it dark this evening, with no car in its driveway or at the curb.

He parked in front of it, took his keys but left the car unlocked. He skirted the house, walked through back yards and gardens in his dark pants and hoodie, moving lightly in his sneakers, staying in the shadows as much as he could. Here and there a yard had been fenced to confine a child, but he didn’t have trouble threading his way through the yards to the rear of the duplex.

He walked around the side, noted the continuing absence of the Hyundai and the Lincoln, then returned to try his key on Ashley Hannon’s back door. It fit and turned in the lock, but the door, secured by a separate bolt, wouldn’t budge.

Always something, he thought. And it was his own fault. He’d been in the kitchen before, he’d seen the door, and why hadn’t he seen the bolt and done something about it?

Why? Because he hadn’t thought to look for it. You couldn’t think of everything, could you?

You couldn’t just stand there, either, or you’d miss your chance to be the first one inside.

He looked through the neighbors’ kitchen window, saw through the kitchen to a room where a flat-panel TV was entertaining the whole family.

Good.

He walked around to the front of the house, careful not to make any noise. The screen door stuck, and for a moment he thought it was latched, but how had she managed to leave the house with a door latched in front and another bolted in the back? She was lithe, she was athletic, she could no doubt climb out a window, but why on earth—

No, he discovered, the screen door wasn’t latched. It was just stuck, and a slightly firmer pull drew it open.

His key turned the lock without a sound. He slipped inside, drew the door shut.

And stood still, waiting, listening. Nothing.

He couldn’t hear the neighbors moving around. He knew they had the TV on but couldn’t swear it wasn’t muted, as no sound reached him through the wall. A side-by-side duplex had a great advantage over a more conventional two-family house; you could figure on a barrier of concrete block between the two apartments, enough to insulate each tenant from the sound created by the other.

Not much chance anyone could hear him, not with the windows closed and the air conditioning on.

An hour and a half later he drew the bolt that had kept him from opening the kitchen door. He retraced his steps through the back yards, and he had almost reached his entry point when a dog started barking.

He dropped to the ground, rolled into a patch of deeper shade. The dog kept it up, and a light went on above the back door two houses over. The door opened, and a man stepped out onto his brightly lit back stoop and shined a flashlight this way and that.

Then the flashlight went out, and the man went back inside and turned off the exterior light. Doak could hear him cursing the dog for barking at nothing.

He went to his car, took a couple of minutes to catch his breath, and headed home.

He sat up late, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for a knock on the door.

Nothing.

He went to bed, couldn’t sleep, got up and put the TV on. Watched without watching. Cracked a beer, drank half of it, poured the rest down the sink.

Went to bed again, a few hours before dawn, and this time he slept.