Chapter 6: The Couch

Something moved under the oak.

Or nothing did, and the wind moved the branches.

I didn't wait to find out.

I ran back across the lawn in my pharmacy flats, through the staff door and up the stairs.

I banged the study door open with my shoulder.

Kendrick was still sitting on the edge of the desk.

He was on his feet before I said a word.

"What happened?"

I held up the phone.

He took it from me and looked at the photo.

I watched his face change.

It didn't get angry.

It went very still.

"When?"

"Three minutes ago. Under the oak."

He scrolled to the second message and read it.

"Careful, sweetheart," he said quietly.

He handed my phone back.

Then he took a flashlight out of the bottom drawer of the bookcase and walked out without a word.

I followed him.

He went down the front stairs, out the front door and straight across the lawn in his bare feet, sweeping the beam over the grass.

He didn't call out.

He just walked toward the dark.

Under the oak, the beam found three cigarette butts in the leaves.

One was still smoking.

Kendrick crouched down and looked at it without touching it.

Then he stood and swung the light down the slope toward the road.

There was nothing there.

Only the stone wall and the black line of the trees.

Far off, an engine started.

We both listened to it go.

"Who was it?" I said.

"I don't know."

"You know something."

"I know you're going to bed," he said. "Walk."

He walked me to cottage three with the flashlight.

At the door he held out his hand for my key.

I gave it to him.

He went in first and turned on every light.

He checked the closet, and the bathroom, and the shower behind the curtain, and the space under the bed.

He checked the window latches.

Two of them didn't close.

He looked at them for a while.

Then he sat down on my little plaid couch and took off his watch and set it on the coffee table.