He found a flashlight in the hall closet. The intruders had rifled through the space, so he had to pick up fallen coats and an ironing board that had tipped over before grasping the thin-barreled halogen off the top shelf. As he was leaving the closet, he saw his father’s favorite pair of hiking boots were gone. He slammed the door shut so hard it didn’t lock and rebounded open behind him as he stalked down the hallway and outside.
It wasn’t dark enough to use the flashlight yet, so he slipped it in his pocket as he walked down the drive. Cool wind slid through the trees, caressing their naked branches and sending dead leaves cartwheeling toward the sea. Quinn shivered and hunched his shoulders against the chill that ran through him.
He passed Graham’s empty house, catching sight of only the top-right dormer window, its black eye finding him before sliding out of sight behind the trees. The wind gusted and died as he walked, the sky muttering again, promising rain. Something moved through the woods to his right and he stopped, his hand finding the flashlight in his pocket as he pictured the XDM resting on the table in the solarium. There was another rustle in the underbrush and then quiet. Quinn flicked the powerful light on, passing it over the place where the noises had come from. It hadn’t sounded big, but maybe it was and simply light on its feet.
A rabbit exploded out of the trees and streaked across the drive.
Quinn lurched backward, his stomach already behind him, headed in the direction of the house. The brownish-gray form leapt from the left shoulder of the road and was gone among the trees on the opposite side. Its passage rattled for several seconds and then the wind rose once more, covering the sound of its flight.
He started walking again, his hand shaking as he shut the light off and returned it to his pocket. The drive bent, and on the corner, Mallory’s house came into view on the right. It was a narrow two-story painted a deep shade of red. There were no trees blocking it from the drive. The lawn, always lush and well maintained in the summer, was a mess of dead grass and fallen branches. Mallory said she’d picked that particular house because she was a snoop and always had to see who was coming and going.
He didn’t pause, the forlorn look of the housekeeper’s home driving him onward. The first arc of lightning lit the sky and he counted the seconds until he heard thunder. Seven. The storm was getting closer. Quinn picked up his pace and in another minute turned off the main drive onto the narrow trail that led to Foster’s house. The trees were very close on either side, their bases nestled in brambles of dead blackberry and wild raspberry vines. The path turned hard to the left and opened into a wide clearing.
Foster’s house was log construction, chalet-style, its interlocking corners sticking out past the rest of the structure. Beneath its highest peak, a large picture window looked out onto the cleared grounds. Foster had sat with him many times over the years in the loft behind the window, gazing out at the snow-covered ground or the burning beauty of fall leaves ready to drop. He’d told stories of his younger days in the Navy, tales of huge ships and massive guns that could lob shells at targets a mile away. Quinn had listened in rapt silence, sipping at the bitter cocoa the older man always made him, too polite to ever say he couldn’t stand the taste.
Quinn realized he’d stopped at the edge of the yard, his eyes locked on the house. He moved quickly across the clearing and mounted the steps, a sudden panic overtaking him as he reached for the doorknob. The door would be locked, and he would have to go back to the main house to look for a spare set of keys before returning here…in the dark. But when he grasped the knob, the door swung inward, the smell of stained logs and old food meeting him as he stepped inside. As he closed the door, he turned on the flashlight causing the darkness and shadows to break apart and flee the halogen beam.