Chapter 7
The floorboard creak held for half a second and then stopped.
I didn't move. My hand stayed on the dark knob, the door half open between the bright porch and the bright dining room. The air coming out was cool and wrong. Coffee was fresh, not from our morning pot. And under it, lemon cleaner we hadn't used in weeks.
"Sarah, don't," Mark said behind me, his voice low. "Let me check first."
Dave, the locksmith, had already taken a step back onto the porch, his toolbox at his feet. He wasn't paid to walk into whatever this was.
"Is someone else in the house?" I asked. I kept my voice even. The question went into the quiet house and didn't come back.
No answer came from the dark hallway. The back bedroom door stayed ajar, maybe four inches. No shadow moved.
Mark tried to get in front of me. "It's just the house settling. Old floors."
It wasn't. We'd lived there three years on County Road 9 and I knew every pop the hallway made. That was a foot on wood, weight shifting.
I stepped in anyway. One foot over the threshold, then the other. The porch camera behind me made a tiny click as it adjusted. I felt it watching my back.
The dining room table was exactly as it had looked through the glass, only clearer. Two mugs on the wood. Mine would have been chipped on the rim. These were both our good set. One near my usual chair, lipstick on the edge, soft pink, not my color. The coffee inside still steamed, a thin wisp curling in the sunlight. The other mug across from it was half-drunk, darker ring inside. Two chairs pulled out at angles, as if two people had sat and talked and not pushed back in.
And against the far chair leg, the bag. Small, dark brown leather, handles folded. Not mine. Mine was tan, scuffed at the corner where I'd set it down on the grocery store parking lot. This one was smooth, newer, no scuff.
I set my own brown bag down on the table. The handles made a soft thump. My bag had felt light since the porch. I hadn't thought about why until now.
"I need my keys," I said.
Mark was inside now too, hovering near the doorway, not coming to the table. "Your keys are in your bag, hon."
I unzipped it. The main pocket. Inside was my wallet, my phone, a folded grocery receipt from yesterday, a hair tie, a pack of gum. The small inside zip pocket where I always kept the silver spare house key - the one that worked even if the main lock acted up - was open. Empty.
I checked again. Fingers feeling the canvas lining, turning the pocket inside out. Nothing. Just a loose thread.
"Where is it?" I asked.
Mark didn't answer right away. He glanced toward the hallway, then at Dave still on the porch.
"I took it," he said finally. Quiet. "Yesterday."
The words landed flat. Yesterday, when Helen from next door said she'd seen him with a drill at the door, between three and five while I was getting groceries.
"Why would you take my spare?" I said. My voice didn't rise. It stayed small and held in the kitchen air.
He swallowed. "Because I changed the deadbolt. The old keys don't work anyway. The spare wouldn't have helped you."
I zipped the bag closed slowly. The zipper sound was loud. "You took it before you changed the lock. So I wouldn't find out after."
He didn't deny it. His hands were at his sides, empty. "I was going to tell you tonight."
On the table, the pink lipstick mug kept steaming. From the back hallway, another faint sound - not a creak this time, a soft bump, like a bag nudged against a wall.
I looked at Mark, then at the dark hallway, then back at my empty bag. The spare key gone wasn't an accident. It was deliberate. Someone had planned for me to stand outside that white door, turning a knob that would never turn, while the camera watched.
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"Who's in the back room, Mark?" I asked.
He opened his mouth, closed it, and the hallway stayed silent, holding whatever answer he didn't want to give.
