Lock and Key(8)

I reached for the knob, then eased the door open, sliding my hand with the bag through first. I was just about to step over the threshold when I heard the whistling.

It was cheery, and a tune I recognized—some jingle from a commercial. Detergent, maybe. I looked around me, wondering what kind of company I would have on a subdivision street at one thirty in the morning. Soon enough, I got my answer.

“Good boy, Roscoe! Good boy!”

I froze. It was Jamie. Now I could see him, coming up the other side of the street with Roscoe, who had just lifted his leg on a mailbox, walking in front of him on a leash. Shit, I thought, wondering whether he was far enough away not to see if I bolted in the opposite direction, dodging the streetlights. After a quick calculation, I decided to go around the house instead.

I could hear him whistling again as I vaulted off the front steps, then ran through the grass, dodging a sprinkler spigot and heading for the backyard. There, I headed for that light I’d been studying earlier, now hoping that it was aliens, or some kind of black hole, anything to get me away.

Instead, I found a fence. I tossed my bag over and was wondering what my chances were of following, not to mention what I’d find there, when I heard a thwacking noise from behind me. When I turned around, I saw Roscoe emerging from his dog door.

At first, he was just sniffing the patio, his nose low to the ground, going in circles. But then he suddenly stopped, his nose in the air. Uh-oh, I thought. I was already reaching up, grabbing the top of the fence and scrambling to try and pull myself over, when he started yapping and shot like a bullet right toward me.

Say what you will about little dogs, but they can move. In mere seconds, he’d covered the huge yard between us and was at my feet, barking up at me as I dangled from the fence, my triceps and biceps already burning. “Shhh,” I hissed at him, but of course this only made him bark more. Behind us, in the house, a light came on, and I could see Jamie in the kitchen window, looking out.

I tried to pull myself up farther, working to get more leverage. I managed to get one elbow over, hoisting myself up enough to see that the source of the light I’d been watching was not otherworldly at all, but a swimming pool. It was big and lit up and, I noticed, occupied, a figure cutting through the water doing laps.

Meanwhile, Roscoe was still yapping, and my bag was already in this strange person’s yard, meaning I had little choice but to join it or risk being busted by Jamie. Straining, I pulled myself up so I was hanging over the fence, and tried to throw a leg to the other side. No luck.

"Roscoe? ” I heard Jamie call out from the patio. “Whatcha got there, boy?”

I turned my head, looking back at him, wondering if he could see me. I figured I had about five seconds, if Roscoe didn’t shut up, before he headed out to see what his dog had treed. Or fenced. Another fifteen while he crossed the yard, then maybe a full minute before he’d put it all together.

“Hello? ”

I was so busy doing all these calculations that I hadn’t noticed that the person who’d been swimming laps had, at some point, stopped. Not only that, but he was now at the edge of the pool, looking up at me. It was hard to make out his features, but whoever it was was clearly male and sounded awfully friendly, considering the circumstances.

“Hi,” I muttered back.

“Roscoe?” Jamie called out again, and this time, without even turning around, I could hear he was moving, coming closer. Unless I had a burst of superhuman strength or a black hole opened up and swallowed me whole, I needed a Plan B, and fast.

“Do you—?” the guy in the pool said, raising his voice to be heard over Roscoe, who was still barking.

“No,” I told him as I relaxed my grip. His face disappeared as I slid down my side of the fence, landing on my feet with mere seconds to spare before Jamie ducked under the small row of trees at the edge of the yard and saw me.

“Ruby?” he said. “What are you doing out here?”

He looked so concerned that for a moment, I actually felt a pang of guilt. Like I’d let him down or something. Which was just ridiculous; we didn’t even know each other. “Nothing,” I said.

“Is everything okay?” He looked up at the fence, then back at me, as Roscoe, who’d finally shut up, sniffed around his feet, making snorting noises.

“Yeah,” I said. I was making it a point to speak slowly. Calmly. Tone was everything. “I was just . . .”

Truth was, at that moment, I didn’t know what I was planning to say. I was just hoping for some plausible excuse to pop out of my mouth, which, considering my luck so far, was admittedly kind of a long shot. Still, I was going to go for it. But before I could even open my mouth, there was a thunk from the other side of the fence, and a face appeared above us. It was the guy from the pool, who, in this better light, I could now see was about my age. His hair was blond and wet, and there was a towel around his neck.

“Jamie,” he said. “Hey. What’s up?”

Jamie looked up at him. “Hey,” he replied. To me he said, “So . . . you met Nate?”

I shot a glance at the guy. Oh, well, I thought. It’s better than what I had planned. “Yeah.” I nodded. “I was just—”

“She came to tell me my music was too loud,” the guy— Nate?—told Jamie. Unlike me, he didn’t seem to be straining in the least, holding himself over the top of the fence. I wondered if he was standing on something. To me he added, “Sorry about that. I crank it up so I can hear it under the water.”