Chapter 32: Leave the Light On

We ran down the tower steps so fast that I lost a boot on the landing.

Chan caught my elbow at the bottom.

"Slow," he said. "Think."

"It's my house."

"I know. We go together."

Hyunjin was already at the truck, with his braid whipping.

I drove down the bluff road at twice the speed I'd ever driven it.

Chan phoned the constable with one hand and held the dash with the other.

At the head of the lane Rory's pickup was gone from where he'd parked it across the road.

"He went for his coffee," I said, sick. "He goes at seven."

The cabin door stood a hand's width open.

The lamp in the kitchen window was dark.

I stopped the truck and killed the engine.

"Mara," Chan said. "You stay in the cab."

"No."

"Please."

"It's my house," I said again. "I'd like to see who's in it."

I took the iron poker from the porch box, because the tire iron was in the shed.

Then I went up the steps first.

The old door swung in without a sound.

A man sat at my kitchen table.

He was about forty, in a grey cardigan, with a neat beard and glasses held together at one hinge with tape.

He looked mild, and tired, and perfectly at home.

He had laid his hands flat on the wood beside a stack of photographs.

I could see the top one from the door.

It was Hyunjin asleep, in a hotel bed, with one arm flung over his face.

"Hello, Mara," he said gently. "I hope you don't mind. The lock was very old."

My mouth wouldn't work.

Behind me Chan came up the steps, and I felt him stop dead.

"I turned the lamp off," the man went on. "Light is hard on the eyes.

"I wanted to see them coming up the hill in the dawn."

"Get out of my kitchen," I said.

"I've waited two years. I've been to Seoul and Osaka and Bangkok.

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