Chapter 7: The Back Door

Cal dragged his jeans up and was gone down the hall before I could think.

Devin stayed one second longer at the end of the couch, and he put the afghan up over my shoulder.

"Stay down," he whispered, as if I could hear him.

Then he was gone too.

I lay there with my pulse in my teeth, listening.

A key scraped in the back door lock.

It wasn't a key.

It was something thin, working at the tumblers, patient.

The lock turned.

The door opened on the kitchen, and a man's boots came in on the linoleum.

I did not move.

I could not decide whether my mother would have wanted me to scream or to lie there.

The boots went to the counter, to the drawers.

They opened one after another, a quick soft shuffle of someone who knew what he wanted.

Then the light by the stairs snapped on, and I heard Cal say, in a flat, calm voice I hadn't heard from him before, "Hands where I can see them."

The man swore.

Something heavy went over, a chair, and then there was a thud that shook the floor.

I sat up.

It was the first thing I'd done all night that wasn't planned.

I snatched the afghan around my hips and ran down the hall in a T-shirt and bare feet, and I stopped in the kitchen doorway.

Cal had the man against the refrigerator with a forearm across his chest.

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