Chapter 8: The Log

The toilet flushed down the hall.

I took a photo of the screen with my phone.

Then I tapped back to the weather and walked into the kitchen and ran the tap over a clean glass.

Curtis came out whistling.

"Water," he said. "Smart girl. Never drink on a school night."

He took his wine back from the table, because nobody had opened it, and left.

The red light on the hall camera stayed dark the whole time.

I watched it anyway.

On the porch, when Abel came back with Gehry, I almost told him everything.

Funerals, El Cajon, the last phone call.

I looked at his kind, tired face and knew how it would sound.

So I told him the part I could prove.

I showed him the photo of the log.

"Admin," he read. "Fourteen minutes of an empty hallway at ten forty at night."

"It wasn't empty. I was in it."

He looked at me over his glasses.

"Do you think he watches you?"

"I think he watches this house. I don't know why yet."

He was quiet for a long moment.

Then he handed me Gehry's leash so he could put on his bike helmet.

"Then you shouldn't live in it," he said. "When's the move?"

The move was the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

That morning, at seven, I was taping boxes in my sleep shirt and gym shorts when Esteban shouted from his room.

"Marisol! Charger! I'm on with Tokyo and I'm at two percent!"

His was on the kitchen counter, where he always left it.

I ran it upstairs, knocked once and pushed the door open.

He was standing at the window in his suit pants and a dress shirt, phone at his ear, waving at the outlet by his bed.

I knelt, plugged it in, handed him the cable and went straight back out.

Ten seconds, maybe.

He didn't even look at me.

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