Chapter Three—Dalen
BY TUESDAY MORNING, I know more about residential door hardware than I ever wanted to learn.
I also know our back door didn’t malfunction.
The locksmith tested it after replacing every exterior lock yesterday.
The security company tested it before him.
The door won’t open unless someone turns the interior handle, and there’s no damage around the frame to suggest anyone forced it.
That leaves me with an explanation I don’t like. Someone was already inside the house Sunday night.
I stand at the kitchen island with my coffee and watch the new camera feed on my phone. The upstairs hall is empty. The downstairs cameras show an equally empty family room, dining room, and kitchen from three different angles.
Julie walks in behind me and reaches around my side for the coffee pot. “Please tell me you’re not watching the house while we’re standing in it.”
I lock my phone and slip it into my pocket. “I was checking the new cameras.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “That wasn’t what I asked.”
“I don’t appreciate how often you use my own lines against me.”
She fills her cup, then turns and leans back against the counter.
Her hair is still damp from the shower, and she’s wearing a gray sweater over black pants.
She looks like herself this morning. That’s a stupid thought, but yesterday, she looked tired every time I glanced at her, and I spent most of the day trying not to glance too often.
Julie catches me doing it now. “You’re staring.”
“You’re pretty.”
“That’s better than telling me I look tired.”
“I learn from my mistakes.”
She smiles and drinks her coffee. The necklace is around her neck again, the three diamonds resting above the collar of her sweater.
I don’t like that she found it in her coat pocket but haven’t told her that because she already knows.
I remember taking it off her Friday night.
She’d turned her back to me in the bedroom and lifted her hair while I worked the clasp.
I kissed the back of her neck afterward, and she complained that I was distracting her because she needed to get out of her heels before they permanently damaged her feet.
What I don’t remember is what happened to the necklace after I unfastened it.
I probably handed it to her. She probably put it in her coat pocket later.
The problem is that neither of us remembers.
Julie sets down her cup and reaches for my tie, which is still lying on the island where I left it. “Are you planning to wear this?”
“Eventually.”
She looks at it for a moment, clearly evaluating the pattern. Faint stripe for the boardroom. “Stripes...you have a board meeting.”
I’m aware of being predictable and don’t confirm it. “I own the company.”
“That doesn’t make ties optional.”
I wave a hand. “It should.”
She steps closer and loops it around my neck before I can object. I let her because the alternative is doing it myself. Also because she smells like the lotion she uses after she showers, and her fingers keep brushing my collar.
“You’re enjoying this,” I accuse.
“Immensely.” She slides the knot upward and straightens it, then smooths both hands down my shirt. “There. You look respectable.”
“I looked respectable before.”
“You looked rich. There’s a difference.”
I catch her around the waist before she can step away. She laughs and braces her hands against my chest while I kiss her.
For a few seconds, I can pretend we’re having a normal morning.
Then something thumps upstairs, and Julie jerks in my arms.
I release her and turn toward the stairs before the sound has finished registering. My phone is already in my hand when I hear another dull bump overhead. “Stay here.”
Julie catches the back of my shirt. “That’s not happening.”
I look at her hand and then at her.
She tightens her grip. “We established this Sunday.”
I don’t waste time arguing. “Behind me.”
We move through the family room toward the stairs. My gun is upstairs, but I don’t expect to need it during the day. Julie stays close enough that I can hear her breathing behind me, and I pull up the upstairs camera as we climb.
The hall is empty.
Another thump comes from the guest room.
Julie grabs my arm. “That one.”
I push the door open, but there’s nothing. The bed is made. The closet door is open because it always is, and morning light comes through the blinds. I check behind the door and inside the closet anyway.
Something knocks against the wall behind me, and Julie yelps.
I spin around. A framed print is hanging crooked above the dresser, tapping softly against the wall every time air moves through the open vent beneath it.
For several seconds, neither of us says anything.
Then Julie presses both hands over her face.
I lower my phone. “The furnace.”
Her laugh comes out shaky behind her fingers. “We’re being terrorized by HVAC.”
I straighten the frame and test it. The bottom corner swings away from the wall and falls back with a muted thump.
Julie drops her hands. “Has it always done that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve lived here twelve years.”
“I don’t spend much time studying the guest-room art.”
She walks over and touches the frame herself, making it knock against the wall again. Her shoulders finally loosen.
I want to be relieved too. Instead, I look toward the vent.
Julie notices. “Dalen.”
“What?”
“You’re glaring at the furnace.”
“I’m considering having it serviced.”
Her mouth drops open. “No.”
“It shouldn’t make pictures move.”
“Air makes pictures move. That’s one of its defining characteristics.”
I put my phone away. “The frame needs another wall pad.”
“The frame needs us to stop acting like lunatics.” She slips her arms around my waist and rests her cheek against my chest. “I almost screamed over a picture.”
“You didn’t scream.”
“I yelped. That’s worse somehow.”
I rub her back until the last tension leaves her. The new cameras caught the entire thing, including us creeping upstairs like someone was waiting with an ax.
I won’t be reviewing that footage.
Julie tilts her head back. “We have to go to work.”
“I know.”
“Actual work. Away from the haunted picture.”
I scowl. “I never said haunted.”
“You thought it. So did I.” She kisses me before I can answer and leaves the room.
I put two adhesive pads on the frame before following her downstairs.
DORSEY CAPITAL OCCUPIES three floors of a building downtown, but my office is on the highest one because I was predictable enough to accept the cliché when we moved here six years ago.
By ten, I’ve already sat through one meeting, moved another to Thursday, and answered thirteen emails that somebody else could probably have handled.
My attention keeps returning to my phone, and I check the cameras twice.
The first time, Julie has already left for a client meeting. The house is empty. The second time, the house is still empty, so I put my phone face-down on my desk.
A knock sounds at the open door, and my assistant steps inside. “Your eleven o’clock is here.”
I look at the time. “Send them in.”
Calla doesn’t move. “Also, your sister-in-law is downstairs.”
I frown. “Meg?”
“She says she’s nearby and has something for Julie. Security called up because she’s on your approved list.”
“Send her up.” My eleven o’clock can wait five minutes.
Meg arrives carrying a paper shopping bag and looking embarrassed about being here. She has her work badge clipped to the waistband of her trousers and her hair pulled into a ponytail. “I’m not interrupting, am I?”
“Only people I pay.” I gesture toward the chairs in front of my desk. “What’s up?”
She sets the bag down. “Julie left her moisturizer at my apartment a couple weeks ago, and since she apparently plans to sand all the skin off her hands, I bought her another one.”
I look inside the bag,and there are three tubes. I glance at her.
She chuckles. “She loses things.”
“Apparently.” The word is out before I think about it.
Meg’s expression changes. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Dalen.”
Julie does the same thing with my name when she knows I’m avoiding a question. Apparently, that’s hereditary.
I sit back in my chair. “She misplaced a necklace yesterday.”
“The anniversary one?”
My attention sharpens. “How do you know which necklace?”
Meg blinks. “Because she wears it constantly, and it’s the one she’d care about losing.” She pauses. “Did she find it?”
“In her coat pocket.”
Relief crosses her face. “Good. She would’ve been devastated.”
I nod. There’s nothing strange about the answer. Meg knows her sister. She’s probably seen that necklace a hundred times.
She pulls out one of the chairs but doesn’t sit. “Is everything okay? Julie sounded weird yesterday.”
My attention shifts fully to her. “When did you talk to her?”
“Yesterday. She called me on her way to work.” Meg frowns. “She didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t important. She just sounded tired.”
I think back to yesterday morning. Julie didn’t go to work until after noon. “What did she say?”
Meg shrugs. “Nothing much. I asked if she was okay because she sounded out of it, and she said she hadn’t slept.”
That could have happened after Julie left the house. She spent the afternoon at the Salish job. She could’ve called Meg from the car.
Still, I don’t like that I don’t remember her mentioning it. “Did she tell you what happened Sunday night?”
Meg’s eyebrows rise. “What happened?”
I hesitate, then decide there’s no reason to keep it from her. She’s Julie’s sister, and she’s in our house often enough that she needs to know there’s a possible security issue. “Julie woke up and thought someone was standing beside the bed.”
Meg’s expression loses all trace of humor. “What?”
“The back door was open the next morning. We’re still figuring out how.”
She lowers herself into the chair now. “Was someone in the house?”
“We don’t know.”
“Oh my god.” Meg looks toward the windows as if the answer might be outside them. “Is Julie okay?”
“She is.”
“Did you call the police?”
“There was nothing to report by the time we knew we might have something to report. The alarm never triggered, the exterior cameras showed nobody entering, and nothing was taken.”
Except the necklace, briefly. I don’t say that because we found it, and it might have been misplaced by my wife.
Meg presses her fingers against her lips. “That’s terrifying.”
“Yes.”
“Was she awake when she saw the person?”
I hesitate. “She woke up because she sensed someone there.”
Meg’s forehead creases. “So she didn’t actually see anybody?”
The question bothers me more than it should. “She knew someone was there.”
Meg looks at me for a second, then nods quickly. “Okay.”
I hear the carefulness in it. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Meg.”
She rubs her palms down her trousers. “I don’t want to make this into something it isn’t.”
“Make what into something?”
“My mom used to do that when she wasn’t sleeping.”
I lean back slightly.
Meg immediately shakes her head. “Forget I said it. This isn’t the same thing.”
I frown. “What did your mother do?”
She looks miserable now, and I regret asking even as I wait for the answer.
“Sometimes, she’d wake up convinced someone was in the room. She’d hear things too.” Meg picks at the edge of her work badge. “It was during a really bad stretch. Julie probably remembers it better than I do.”
Julie has told me about her mother. I know there were periods when she couldn’t function and Julie had to take over things no kid should have been responsible for.
Groceries. Bills. Getting Meg to school.
I know enough to understand why Julie still watches her twenty-seven-year-old sister until she’s safely inside her car.
She’s never mentioned their mother believing people were in the house.
Meg stands abruptly. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Julie had one bad night after barely sleeping. The door thing is weird, so you obviously have to take it seriously.”
“I am.”
“I know.” She picks up the shopping bag and pushes it toward me. “Give her those before her hands fall off.”
I take the bag. “Thanks.”
Meg walks toward the door, then hesitates. “She really is okay?”
“Yes.”
Her shoulders relax. “Good. I worry about her.”
“I know.”
After she leaves, I sit there for another minute before turning my phone over.
I don’t search for anything about sleep deprivation or hallucinations. I don’t call Julie and ask about her mother.
I check the house cameras.
Empty.
Then I call Julie because hearing her voice seems like a better use of my time.
She answers with noise behind her. “If this is about the guest-room picture, I refuse to authorize a furnace replacement.”
I smile despite myself. “Where are you?”
“At the Hollman house. Why?”
“No reason. Meg stopped by my office.”
There’s a pause, followed by obvious surprise. “Why?”
“She brought you moisturizer.”
Julie groans. “She’s escalating.”
“Absolutely. She bought three.”
That akes her laugh. “Jeez. It’s dry skin, not a terminal illness.”
I laugh and pick up the bag. “Do you want me to bring them home, or should I distribute them around the city so you’re never more than five minutes from one?”
She groans. “Don’t encourage her.”
“I think we’re past that.”
Someone says Julie’s name in the background. She tells them she’ll be there in a second, then comes back to me. “I have to go. Everything okay?”
I could ask whether she called Meg yesterday.
I want to ask about her mom but the timing is wrong. “Everything’s fine. I’ll see you tonight.”
Her voice softens. “Love you.”
“Love you too.” I hang up and go to my meeting.
The rest of the day is almost normal.
Julie texts me a picture of a hideous chandelier at three with a message asking whether divorce is justified if I like it. I tell her I hate it. She sends back a heart.
I don’t check the cameras again until I’m leaving the office. Nothing has happened.
By the time I get home, Julie is barefoot in the family room with fabric samples spread across the coffee table. I drop the shopping bag beside her.
She peers inside and groans. “Traitor.”
“I didn’t buy them.”
“You transported contraband.”
I loosen my tie and sit beside her. “Use the lotion.”
“Stop helping her.” She takes out a tube anyway.
I watch her rub it into her hands while she tells me about the Hollman dining room and a client who wants white upholstery despite having three children under six.
Her face is animated, her hands moving as she talks until she remembers they’re covered in lotion and nearly smears it on a fabric sample.
I catch her wrist.
She laughs. “That would’ve been bad.”
“Very.”
She leans over and kisses me, leaving the faint scent of citrus moisturizer between us.
Meg’s comment from this morning crosses my mind.
I push it away.
Later, while Julie showers, I walk through the house and check every lock. I tell myself I’m doing it because someone may have gotten inside Sunday night.
That’s still the explanation that makes the most sense.
When I reach the guest room, the picture above the dresser is hanging straight. I press one corner with my thumb, making sure the new pads hold, then turn off the light and close the door behind me.