Hide and Seek

I turned the beam on the floor inside. There was a lot of broken

glass there, but nothing that would get in the way of my climbing in. I

swept the bottom pane with the base of the flashlight just to be sure

there were no small pieces of glass to grab me. Then I handed it

back

I turned with my back to the window and reached inside and found the

upper line of molding with my fingertips. I brought my head, shoulders

and chest inside, and was immediately aware of the cool, moldy smell of

the place. Then I pulled myself up and swung my ass and legs into the

room. I set myself down in a crunch of broken glass. Steve handed me

the flashlight.

Once I was in there the adrenaline really started pumping. That was

it. Break-in. From now on they could arrest you.

Chit

OMIT..

The first thing I did was sweep the room with the flashlight. A brief

impression of empty space, an old wooden table and a potbellied stove

left behind. I was in the kitchen. It had been a big kitchen. You

could see the rust stains on the linoleum floor where the refrigerator

had been. There was wallpaper with a fruit-and-berry motif. There

were dirty white tiles over the kitchen sink. I thought that at least

the moldings over the doors and windows had been scraped and varnished,

not painted. The same with the cabinets. Somebody had cared a

little.

A two-year-old gas-station calendar hung from a nail on the wall beside

me. The month was December. There was a picture of a pair of terrier

pups peering over the edge of a Christmas stocking, liquid eyed and

plaintive. Directly down the wall from that, over the baseboard, was

an empty telephone jack. On the floor lay a small broken end table,

over on its side.

I went to the door.

It was double-locked, a Segal lock and a bolt type. I turned the one

and threw the other. Casey led them in and I closed the door behind

them.

"Lights on," she said, and her beam and Kim's joined mine.

Directly in front of us was the stairwell leading to the second floor,

right off the kitchen. The planking looked solid enough. The

banisters seemed to have been replaced recently.