The Blood Beneath the Kitchen Table

“I’m taking the way down through the wall,” I told Brenda.

Her hands shot to her lips. “Dave, don’t. He’s enormous, he’s dangerous. If you go down there, he’ll kill you.”

“If we wait in here, he’ll kill us sooner or later.” My answer came out flat.

I crossed to the closet and angled my flashlight into the open cavity. It ran all the way to the basement utility room, past the furnace and water heater.

Heavy studs and copper lines cut through the dark. They gave me places to plant a boot, and something to hold while I climbed.

“You stay put,” I said. “Don’t approach the door, and don’t make a sound.”

I gave her no chance to object. I turned sideways and pushed through the ragged opening.

A sharp edge snagged my shirt. Pain scraped across my ribs as I forced myself through, but I kept going.

Inside, the space smelled of dry timber and old insulation. The darkness pressed close around my shoulders.

I set one boot against a stud and looped my arm around a broad drainpipe. Then I lowered myself a few inches at a time.

The timber complained whenever I shifted. I stopped and listened, holding my breath until the quiet settled again.

Nothing moved above me. Nothing called out.

I eased lower. The cramped shaft seemed to stretch endlessly beneath my feet.

Then my boot came down on something that gave way.

I aimed the flashlight below me. Between two studs, a piece of flattened cardboard made a crude little platform.

A collection of things had been left there. At first glance it looked like refuse.

I steadied myself against the wall and leaned in. Empty water bottles. Torn food wrappers. Several batteries.

Someone had made a hiding place inside our walls.

A small spiral notebook lay among the rest. Its cover was worn and bent.

I wedged the flashlight beneath my chin and opened it carefully.

The writing was tight and hurried. Dates, times, brief notes. A record of Brenda and Clara.

I stared at the entries, feeling my blood chill. Someone had been following their movements.

The dates near the front reached back much farther than I expected. Not merely to the weeks since I’d deployed.

Three months. I had still been home then, sleeping under the same roof as my family.

Whoever kept this had watched them while I was there.

A name had been marked with a dark circle: Miller.

My thoughts jumped to Brenda’s story about the dog. She had brought up the Millers and their golden retriever as if it explained what had happened.

But the Millers were gone. They had moved away months earlier, and someone else had bought their house.

The story had never fit. Now the name in the notebook made it fit in a different, far worse way.

Greg lived in the house the Millers sold. He was the new neighbor Brenda’s lie had helped conceal.

The cameras aimed toward our property had not been there by accident. Greg had been able to watch our home from next door.

He had observed the family, learned their habits, and let his interest turn into something sick and consuming.

Then he had entered our house. He had waited for the chance to make it his own.

I pushed the notebook into my pocket and tightened my fingers around the folding knife.

At least now I knew who I was looking for. I started down again, quicker, with anger driving me past caution.

My boots reached the basement floor. I dropped into a crouch and switched off the flashlight.

The room was almost completely black. A narrow line of gray showed beneath the utility-room door, spilling in from the finished part of the basement.

I listened before moving. From beyond the door came a faint scrape, then a rustle. Someone was shifting around.

I crept closer and closed my hand around the knob. I was ready to wrench it open.

My foot struck an object hidden on the concrete. It spun away with a sharp metal clatter.

I locked in place. The sound seemed loud enough to fill the whole house.

Slowly, I brought the flashlight back on, cupping my hand over its beam so no light would escape beneath the door.

A key lay on the floor. I bent and picked it up.

It was an ordinary brass house key, but a faded red ring was fitted around its head.

My breath stopped. I knew that ring.

This was our spare, the key Brenda and I kept in the steel lockbox bolted down inside our master-bedroom closet.

The box opened with a six-digit code. I knew the numbers.

Brenda knew them too.

I stared at the key, then lifted my eyes toward the bedroom above. The intruder could not have taken it from that lockbox without knowing the code—and Brenda knew it.