The Other Mrs.(16)

I jam the picture and the bookmark somewhere back inside the book, rise from the sofa and bring the book to the kitchen table. I leave it there, having suddenly lost the desire to read.

The dogs have begun to bark. I can’t leave them outside barking in the middle of the night. I open the slider and call to them, but they don’t come.

I’m forced outside into the backyard to get their attention. The patio is freezing cold on my bare feet. But that discomfort is secondary to what I feel inside as I get taken in, swallowed by the darkness. The kitchen light fades quickly behind me as the December night closes in.

I can see nothing. If someone was there, standing in the darkness of our yard, I wouldn’t know. An unwanted thought comes pummeling into me then. My saliva catches in my throat and I choke.

Dogs have adaptations that people don’t have. They can see much better than humans in the dark. It makes me wonder what the dogs see that I can’t see, what they’re barking at.

I hiss out into the night, calling quietly for the girls. It’s the middle of the night; I don’t want to shout. But I’m too scared to go any farther outside than I already am.

How do I know that Morgan Baines’s killer isn’t there?

How do I know that the dogs aren’t barking because there’s a murderer in my yard?

Backlit by the kitchen light, I’m a fish in a fishbowl.

I can see nothing. But whoever is there—if anyone is there—can easily see me.

Without thinking it through, I take a step suddenly back. The fear is overwhelming. There’s the greatest need to run back into the kitchen, close and lock the door behind myself, pull the drapes shut. But would the dogs be able to fend off a killer all on their own?

And then the dogs suddenly stop their barking and I’m not sure what terrifies me more, the barking or the silence.

My heart pounds harder. My skin prickles, a tingling sensation that runs up and down my arms. My imagination goes wild, wondering what horrible thing is standing in my yard.

I can’t stand here waiting to find out. I clap my hands, call to the dogs again. I hurry inside for their biscuits and shake the box frantically. This time, by the grace of God, they come. I open the box, spill a half dozen treats on the kitchen floor before closing and locking the slider, pulling the drapes tightly closed.

Back upstairs, I check again on the boys. They’re just as I left them.

But Imogen’s door, this time as I pass by, is open an inch. It’s no longer closed. It’s no longer locked. The hallway is narrow and dark with just enough light that I’m not blind. A faint glow from the lamp in the living room rises up to me. It helps me see.

My eyes go to that one-inch gap between Imogen’s door and the frame. It wasn’t like that the last time I was here. Imogen’s room, like Otto’s, faces onto the street. I go to her door and press on it, easing it open another inch or two, just enough so that I can see inside. She’s lying there, on her bed, with her back to me. If she’s faking sleep, she does so quite well. Her breathing is rhythmic and deep. I see the rise and fall of the sheet. Her curtains are open, moonlight streaming into the room. The window, like the door, is open an inch. The room is icy cold, but I don’t risk stepping inside to close it.

Back in our bedroom, I shake Will awake. I won’t tell Will about Imogen because there’s nothing really to say. For all I know, she was up using the bathroom. She got hot and opened her window. These are not crimes, though other questions nag at the back of my mind.

Why didn’t I hear a toilet flush?

Why didn’t I notice the chill from the bedroom the first time I passed by?

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Will asks, half-asleep.

As he rubs at his eyes, I say, “I think there’s something in the backyard.”

“Like what?” he asks, clearing his throat, his eyes drowsy and his voice heavy with sleep.

I wait a beat before I tell him. “I don’t know,” I say, leaning into him as I say it. “Maybe a person.”

“A person?” Will asks, sitting quickly upright, and I tell him about what just happened, how there was something—or someone—in the backyard that spooked the dogs. My voice is tremulous when I speak. Will notices. “Did you see a person?” he asks, but I tell him no, that I didn’t see anything at all. That I only knew something was there. A gut instinct.

Will says compassionately, his hand reassuringly stroking mine, “You’re really shaken up about it, aren’t you?”

He wraps both hands around mine, feeling the way they tremble in his. I tell him that I am. I think that he’s going to get out of bed and go see for himself if there’s someone in our backyard. But instead he makes me second-guess myself. It isn’t intentional and he isn’t trying to patronize me. Rather, he’s the voice of reason as he asks, “But what about a coyote? A raccoon or a skunk? Are you sure it wasn’t just some animals that got the dogs worked up?”

It sounds so simple, so obvious as he says it. I wonder if he’s right. It would explain why the dogs were so upset. Perhaps they sniffed out some wildlife roaming around our backyard. They’re hunters. Naturally they would have wanted to get at whatever was there. It’s the far more logical thing to believe than that there was a killer traipsing through our backyard. What would a killer want with us?

I shrug in the darkness. “Maybe,” I say, feeling foolish, but not entirely so. There was a murder just across the street from us last night and the murderer hasn’t been found. It’s not so irrational to believe he’s still nearby.