LITMIR.BIZ

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the wall. Switches — which ones did what? She didn’t press any to find out.

      She slid aside the blinds on the mudroom’s exterior door. Still nobody. Just the furniture on the deck and the hanging baskets above. A few shadows large enough to hide a man, or a deer, if it stood quite still. She could walk outside and yell for whoever it was to show themselves. Say the cops were on their way. They probably should have called the police right away, but if it was only a deer going after the flowers, she’d feel like a fool. And an even bigger failure. Only a few weeks off the Force and she couldn’t handle walking around a house at night? She’d have been laughed off the job, if she were still on it. But there was a difference, a confidence, to walking a perimeter with a heavy flashlight, heavy boots, a heavy vest, and a dispatcher on the other end of your radio. Here, she’d be walking out in Tweety Bird pants and T-shirt and bare feet, if she couldn’t find her workboots in the dark, strange house. The dogs still hadn’t made a sound. She couldn’t tell from this angle if they were asleep in their shelter or lying drugged — or worse — by the gate. Going out there was the next logical step. Or rather, putting on her workboots was. She tied the laces in the dark, tucking in the trailing ends in case she had to chase down a prowler.

      Hoping Dee was doing as she was told, Lacey opened the door. The river’s roar ran like ice water down her spine. A scant second later, the dogs’ howls split the silence, letting her know just what they thought of an interloper daring to open a door of their mistress’s house. Which made it an even bigger mystery: if someone really had been prowling in the yard, why had the dogs remained silent?

      Behind her, Dee’s voice calmed the dogs.

      Lacey spun. “What are you doing down here? I told you to wait upstairs.”

      “I decided I couldn’t hide out and let you defend my turf for me.” Dee sounded half defiant and half scared out of her mind. “Did you see who it was?”

      “I didn’t see anybody. Or any movement at all until I opened the door and the dogs freaked out.” Lacey peered hard at Dee, but the dark within the room hid her friend’s expression. “Are you 100 percent sure you heard somebody on the deck? Because the dogs are obviously fine, and they’re very much defending the place right now.”

      “Oh god,” said Dee. “Not again. Please, Lacey, can you just walk around the house? Make sure nobody’s tampered with the windows or anything? I’ll tell you everything when you come back in.”

      “All right, but I want the outside lights on. I’ve tripped over enough stuff already.”

      Lacey stood silent on the deck, eying the ring of ominous darkness beyond the terrace lights. The dogs, vigilant in their pen, watched not the dark treeline, but the interloper on their deck. Likely they sensed her tension but, obedient to Dee’s shout, they didn’t make a sound. She was thankful for that much. Five minutes outside, examining each door handle and window latch by the strong beam of a flashlight, showed that nothing had changed since her afternoon’s perimeter check. No scrapes or scratches, no smudges save those she had left herself when trying to peer in earlier. She made a thorough job of it again, circling the garage and the dog pen, conscious with every step of the dogs pacing her inside their wire fence. The river’s menace washed louder over her nerves. She shivered and didn’t try to tell herself it was just the midnight chill on her bare arms.

      As she came in the mudroom door, she called out, “Just me.”

      Dee was making tea, her silhouette edged by the light from the stove hood. She poured the boiling water with intense concentration. “You didn’t see anyone.”

      “No sign of anybody.” Lacey locked the door and drew the blind, but left the outside lights on. “You ever think of getting motion-sensor lights? They’d be a deterrent.”

      “They’re on the garage, pointing down the drive.”

      Impossible to read her emotions from that clipped sentence. Lacey prodded for another response. “More of them would be good. On the deck or over the backyard?”

      “Animals would set them off all night. And I can’t afford them, anyway.” Dee’s voice was strung tighter than an off-key violin. Her hand shook as she pulled mugs from the cupboard. “You want canned milk with your tea? I bought some special, just like the old days. It’s in the fridge.”

      “Heavenly,” said Lacey, as she reached for the glossy black refrigerator handle. She kept her eye on Dee, though, and saw well enough when her friend blotted her eyes on a cloth napkin. Dee, crying? It was almost unthinkable, like the Hoover Dam springing a leak. “Hey, now, take it easy. We’ll figure this out. Sit down, get your foot up, and tell the big mean ex-cop all your troubles. For real this time.”

      It took a good few minutes before Dee looked up from crumpling the napkin between her fingers. “It might all be my imagination, although heaven knows I listen hard enough. And tonight I was sure I heard boot heels on the deck. Not just once, but from my room and again from yours. Maybe I’ve been staying awake too much, stressing, and my mind is playing tricks on me. God knows I need a decent night’s sleep. I don’t think I’ve had one in months.”

      “What is it that keeps you awake? Pain in your ankle, job stuff, fear of a prowler?”

      “It’s not just a fear,” Dee snapped. “Somebody is prowling around my house at night. Somebody the dogs don’t bark at.”

      Lacey’s domestic violence meter clicked up another notch. The blinds had indeed been an early clue. “Neil? The dogs wouldn’t bark at him, would they? Did he ever hit you, Dee? Or threaten you?”

      “Never. He might have thought about it a few times, but he’d have worried about breaking a nail.” Dee pressed the napkin to her eyes again. Her voice came out muffled under the drooping cloth. “He left me in the most humiliating way possible, and he has nothing to gain by sneaking back here at night. In fact, since I pay him spousal support, he might even lose by being so stupid.”

      Potential gain wasn’t the reason most men stalked their exes. It was blind, irrational rage that motivated such behaviour. Lacey had seen that all too often on the job. Women who were stalked, terrified, beaten. Killed for the crime of leaving. For an instant Dan’s face flashed up, those nights when she’d shoved a dresser across her bedroom door in case he tried to get into the house while she was asleep, before she had the locks changed. Why did Dee blithely assume Neil was any safer? Lacey took a breath and a sip of milky tea, refocusing. Go back to the evidence. See what was there.

      “Okay, you’re sure someone has been here some nights. You’ve heard footsteps when there shouldn’t be any. Has there been any concrete evidence afterward?”

      “The first time I heard them, a few months ago, there were boot prints in the snow the next morning. Down from the path in back, past the dog run to the porch, and out the same way. I hadn’t looked the day before, so I don’t know if it was a neighbour walking by that way to see if I was home, or if it happened that night.” Dee lowered the napkin. “But I heard someone.”

      “I’ll accept your word on that. And the next time?”

      “Another time there was dried mud on the deck when I woke up one morning. I hadn’t come in that way, so it might have been done the day before.” Dee’s eyes, red-rimmed and etched around with fine lines, flickered over each of the tightly curtained windows. “Not conclusive, I know. But another time I very distinctly heard footsteps right on the porch. I wasn’t even asleep yet, just lying in bed in the dark, watching the moon over the snowcaps down south. I lay there wondering if I’d heard what I thought I heard. Then they started up again. I ran to the window first, didn’t see anyone, so I ran downstairs. Whoever it was had gone by the time I got the lights on. Or they were hiding in the trees, watching me.” Dee shuddered. “I went out for a good look around at first light, but I couldn’t see anything unusual. No mud, no snow to leave footprints in.

      “Now I stay awake night after night listening for them to come back. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone from window to window, like you did tonight, looking out, always afraid

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