THIRTEEN

THIRTEEN

THE OTHER OFFICERS FILE out. I profusely thank each of them. You take cops for granted until you need one. Kyle stays, especially after my last comment to him.

I walk back into the house, putting down Lulu, who follows me. Kyle follows me inside, too, stays by me as I do a check of the entire house. My nerves are still rattled, but the sense of danger is gone, replaced with a mounting sense of violation. I enter every room, the kids' bedrooms, these sacred, safe, warm places where they sleep and play and study and dream of their lives. Wondering if some creepster invaded their private space, touched things, wanting to disinfect every nook and cranny to remove the taint. I check for anything amiss, anything moved, anything disturbed, anything missing.

All the while feeling ever so grateful that an armed police officer — that Kyle, in particular — is escorting me.

We end in the last room upstairs, the master bedroom. Nothing out of place, no reason to think the creepster invaded this private area.

"You said you don't think this was random," says Kyle.

"Some … weird things have been happening," I say.

I give him the rundown. Kyle doesn't speak, but his facial reactions to the various odd and borderline disturbing things only reinforce my concerns.

"You think of them individually, and how inconsequential they are, and you blow them off. I mean, my coffeepot in my dryer? Who would go to the trouble of sneaking into my house to do that? And Lulu — maybe somehow she got out and back in."

"But now you think differently," he says.

"Wouldn't you?"

"Well …"

"Seriously — unless I've started hallucinating or sleepwalking, how did my coffeepot get inside the dryer overnight? It didn't walk over there by itself. God, I sound like my mother."

"Your house alarm wasn't set?"

"We don't set it usually. Today was the first day. We had one installed when we built this house, but we never — I mean, look where we live, Kyle! Who robs houses in Hemingway Grove?"

I bring a hand to my face, shake my head. "I'm beginning to think that somebody's doing something. I don't know who, I don't know why —"

"Okay, okay." His warmth against me, his arms around me, so seamless and natural that I don't know if I fell into his arms or he came to me. Of course, this is innocent. Of course, this is wrong, but so familiar, so comforting, so —

His hand slowly runs up my back.

"No." I release myself, step back. "Um, I —"

"Yeah, no, I'm — right. Right, right. Obviously." His face flushed, Kyle steps back, puts his hands on his hips, nods his head toward the door. "Yeah. So I'll … probably go back downstairs?"

"Sure, sure."

He leaves the bedroom and heads downstairs. He opens the french doors and steps onto the patio before turning back, now at a safe distance, cooler heads having prevailed.

"So we should pass a car by your house on a regular basis for a while," he says, regaining his balance, returning to the business at hand. "Think about installing cameras. They're a good deterrent."

"Good idea. And thanks, Kyle. Thanks for doing this. It was … it was good seeing you."

His eyes meet mine and stay there for a beat too long. Then he blinks away the eye contact. "Just doing my job." He turns and walks through the backyard without another word.