Now he was inside my kitchen while he thought I wasn’t home.
The hallway floor creaked.
He was coming back.
I slid the phone partly beneath my chest and went still.
His shoes appeared in the bedroom doorway again.
This time he was carrying something.
A small brass key dropped onto the dresser with a sharp metallic click.
Then another.
My pulse hammered.
Keys.
He had keys.
I remembered leaving my key ring on my desk at work about a month earlier.
I had gone downstairs for coffee and returned to find it exactly where I’d left it.
At the time, it had seemed too ordinary to remember.
Now I could see that key ring in my mind as clearly as if it were in front of me.
My house key had been on it.
My manager picked up one of the keys again.
“Should’ve changed this one already,” he said.
I stared at the darkness beneath the bed.
My phone captured every word.
Then he walked toward me again.
This time his shoes stopped so close that the leather nearly touched my hand.
“Marcus?”
His tone had changed.
No irritation.
Suspicion.
I realized why a second later.
My work shoes were beside the bed.
I had forgotten them there.
They were the pair I wore almost every day.
He knew them.
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then he crouched.
The comforter began rising.
I had no time left to decide whether hiding was safer than moving.
So I acted first.
I rolled hard toward the opposite side of the bed, came out on my knees, and stood with the mattress between us.
My manager jerked backward.
His face went completely white.
“Marcus.”
I kept the phone in my hand.
“What are you doing in my house?”
For one extraordinary second, neither of us said anything.
Then his expression changed.
The shock disappeared behind the same look he used at work whenever someone challenged him in a meeting.
“You told me you were sick.”
I almost couldn’t believe the answer.
“So you entered my house?”
“I saw you leave.”
There it was.
Confirmation that he had been watching.
I kept my voice level.
“How did you get inside?”
His eyes flicked toward the dresser.
Toward the key.
Then back to me.
