Page 102 of Nightwatching

It felt like my husband was still here, watching over us. Trying to get home.

“Um. Well. I think I mentioned to you, back then, how the kids thought they saw someone, a man? I assumed they were just hoping it was their dad, but maybe not? A couple of the kids’ things—a hat, a stuffed animal—just vanished. And I thought I saw someone out in the pasture. So did my daughter, a different day. Then the swing set? Someone had messed with a carabiner. And—”

She hesitated. Thought about the baby monitor switched to “off.”Deer braying into the forest. That same sense of the yellowed mountain lion’s eyes.

How paranoid, how haunted, do you want to sound?

“And the key rock was moved, once. Over by the woodpile, instead of by the door. It’s possible he could have copied the key?”

The sergeant laced his fingers together. “And you didn’t report any of this.”

“No. I mean, what am I going to report, that I can’t find my daughter’s hat?”

“It wouldn’t be all that unusual,” the boyish officer mused, “for someone to watch a house before a break-in.”

“Wouldn’t be unusual for kids to screw with stuff, either.” The sergeant leaned back, asked, “So you think this man was watching your house?”

A sense of loss washed over her as she recalled the way she, the way her daughter, had hoped that the strange sights after her husband’s death were little indications of his still-hovering presence. Ridiculous, of course, but oddly comforting. A feeling diametrically opposed to the possibility that the Corner had stalked them, close and silent.

“That’s all I can think of. That he was watching us. Planning. He knew, that night, he said it? How it was only the three of us in the house. So he must have been watching. He must have copied the key.”

“That’s a lot of effort,” the sergeant said.

Unsure how to respond, she stayed silent.

“All right. Now, there are some inconsistencies we need to clear up.” The sergeant waved his hand dismissively. “Just little things.”

“Inconsistencies?”

“Yes. You said you didn’t have anything to drink that night. No alcohol.”

“That’s right.”

“This is not a thing to lie about ma’am, right? Drinking’s legal. No big deal.”

“I know that.” She tried to keep her irritation out of her voice. Glanced impatiently out the window, at the way it showed time slipping away.

The sergeant wiped his palms on his thighs where his pants hitched into tight awkward folds around his bulk. His eyes thinned.

“Now, see, that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence,” he said. “ ’Cause when you came into the hospital, you had a blood alcohol level of—” He grabbed his notebook from the coffee table, tried to look like he was searching for something. But the page he stopped at was obvious, flagged with a yellow sticky note.

“Okay, here it is. Blood alcohol level of…” He squinted at the page, then looked up at her. “Point oh seven five.”

“Sorry, I don’t know…is that a lot?”

“It’s not nothing,” the sergeant said.

“Could it be from using mouthwash? Sometimes I use mouthwash.”

The sergeant gave a sardonic chuckle. “No, ma’am.”

Something’s wrong up there, isn’t it? Something rattling around and buzzing. Maybe you dislodged something in your brain that night. Can’t you feel it moving?

“I don’t understand. It’s not possible.”

“These numbers?” The sergeant held up his notebook. “Your blood? It doesn’t lie.”

“But, I didn’t,” she protested through the humming doubt deep in her ears. “I didn’t have anything to drink.”

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