She was so frightened that she didn’t even smile, but she nodded again.
I led her by the hand down the hallway, away from the entrance. Every step seemed to me a blasphemy against something that could explode just by listening to us. The house, which an hour before had seemed normal to me, now felt alien, hostile, watching us. The refrigerator was humming. A clock marked the seconds. The heating exhaled a low breath from some hidden grate.
Everything seemed too strong to me.
Too dangerous.
As I walked through the living room, I saw the family photograph on the shelf: Derek with his arm on my shoulders, Lily in the middle, smiling with two loose teeth and a cardboard crown from his birthday party. For a moment my mind did what cowardly minds do when the horror is too great: it tried to defend him.
Maybe it wasn’t him.
Maybe Lily misunderstood.
Maybe someone else…
But then I remembered something that I had let go of at the time.
Two weeks earlier, Derek insisted on changing the smoke detector batteries himself. He said the system was failing. After that, one of them stopped blinking his usual blink. When I mentioned it to him, he replied, irritated, that I did not know how those devices worked.
I kept walking.
There was no longer room for maybe.
We arrived at the dining room. The window was high, with two leaves, and looked out onto the side garden fenced with boxwood. My fingers were shaking so much that I could hardly lift the lock. I did it millimeter by millimeter, hoping at any second to hear another click, another sound that would betray another surprise.
Nothing.
I pushed.
The window opened with a faint groan.
The fresh morning air came in like a blessing.
I picked Lily up and helped her through first. He fell on his feet on the wet grass. Then I went out, taking care not to hit the frame. As I touched land, I took my first deep breath.
We were out.
But we weren’t safe.
I circled the house without getting too close. My car was in the driveway, right in front of the porch. Too close to the front door. Too exposed. I wasn’t going to cross over there. I finally took the phone out of my bag and dialed 911 with clumsy fingers.
They answered the third tone.
I explained everything hurriedly: my daughter had heard my husband talk about an accident, the house smelled of gas, the front door was tampered with, we were outside. The operator told me to move away from the apartment immediately and not to try to re-enter for any reason. They had already sent police and firefighters.
“Is your husband still inside?” he asked.
I felt a chill.
“No. He left half an hour ago.
“Is there anyone else with access to the property?”
I thought of the silent house, of the half-lowered blinds, of the hidden buzz of the installations.
And then I saw it.
The white van parked across the street.
I hadn’t noticed it when I got to the garden because it was partially covered by some trees. His windows were tinted. Engine off. A man at the wheel.
Looking at us.
My pulse shot up.
“Yes,” I whispered. I think there’s someone watching the house right now.
“Get out of there,” the operator said, and her tone changed. Can he run?
I didn’t answer. He was already doing it.
I grabbed Lily and we ran to the house of the neighbor across the street, Mrs. Harper, a seventy-year-old widow who always swept her driveway in her dressing gown and whom Derek considered “an unbearable meddle.” I crossed the garden without asking permission and started knocking on the door.
“Open it!” Open up, please!
The truck started.
A low, threatening noise.
It took Mrs. Harper forever to open it, but when she saw my face and Lily’s she asked no questions. He pulled us inside and closed with a double lock.
“Call the police,” I said, panting. They’re coming, but there’s a man outside.
“Good God,” she murmured.
We peek through a crack in the curtain. The truck was still there. Motionless. As if waiting for a sign.
And then the signal came.
It was not a cinematic explosion. Not at first. It was a dull, hollow blow, as if the house were breathing its last from within. The front windows vibrated. A second later came the real rumble.
The façade was lit up orange.
The windows shattered outwards.
