A Marriage Left Behind novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Ladder

Brady's text came while I was still in the parking garage.

"Staying at Mom's tonight. She's upset. Don't wait up."

I read it twice and typed nothing back.

On the way home I stopped at the hardware store and bought two deadbolts and a box of small screws.

The man at the register asked if I was locked out.

"The opposite," I said.

At home the house was dark and smelled like the coffee he'd left in the pot.

I stood in the front hall and listened to nothing.

Seven years, and I had never been alone in it on a weeknight with the lights off and nobody due.

I collected the mail from the box on my way in, because Brady always did and he wasn't here to.

I put it on the hall table unopened and went to find the screwdriver.

The front door had one good bolt, and a second old one that the last owners had screwed high up on the frame, out of reach.

Judith had a key to the first.

Kylie had a key to both, because Brady had cut her one the week she bought her house.

I dragged the kitchen stepladder to the door, and climbed it, and put the screwdriver to the first screw.

It was stripped.

"You need the other end of that," a voice said behind me. "Or a drill."

I looked down.

Thane stood on the porch in his canvas jacket with a cordless drill in one hand.

He had been about to knock, and he held up the drill as his reason.

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