The rest of the neighborhood appeared to be winding down. Lights had started turning on in the houses down the street, illuminating my path.
A figure approached from the corner, slowly moving up the road. Tina, pushing her father in a wheelchair, his hands folded in his lap.
“How you doing, Harper?” she asked as they approached. She brushed her dark bangs to the side of her forehead.
“Okay,” I said. Her friendliness and sincerity were a welcome relief. “I’m on watch tonight, just getting started.”
“That girl back?” her dad asked, suddenly alert. Mr. Monahan had a stout frame, his head sunken almost directly into his broad shoulders. He looked like someone who had once been strong. Tina had that same frame, short and broad, her loose clothes camouflaging her strength—I’d seen her load the wheelchair into the back of her vehicle like it was weightless. Her mother, on the other hand, was petite and frail-looking and probably would’ve had difficulty caring for her husband even in her youth.
“Dad,” Tina said in warning.
“She is,” I said. No point lying when we all knew the truth.
Mr. Monahan raised a hand to his thinning white hair, his fingers trembling as he smoothed a few flyaway strands to the side.
Tina sighed. “I better get him home soon or my mom will worry,” she said.
“You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not here,” Mr. Monahan said with a childish roll of his eyes. Tina squeezed his shoulder, then gave me a small smile as they continued toward home.
“Good night,” I called after them.
“Be careful,” her father called back.
As I continued my walk around the perimeter, I took stock of the routines of our community: Paul Wellman turning his silver sedan into his driveway, pulling straight through to the garage, the mechanical door lowering before he’d even exited the car. A couple leaving the pool at closing time, barefoot and wrapped in towels, their laughter trailing behind them.
Porch lights turning on, fragmented scenes visible through the open curtains. Flashes of television screens, the scent of burgers cooking on a grill, as I walked the road that backed to the high white fences of our patios.
When I arrived home, I debated how many more passes I really needed to do.
“All safe on the home front?” Ruby called. She seemed to be in exactly the same position on the couch.
“All clear.”
The television was tuned to the same news station, though the volume had been lowered, more for background noise than active listening. She had a book in one hand—a paperback, cover folded over so I couldn’t read the title.
I returned to my spot at the kitchen table, opening my laptop again, deciding I’d go out once more before bed. Split the night at a reasonable hour. Surely no one would complain when the person they really wanted to keep an eye on was currently inside my house. The more I was home, the more I could keep an eye on her.
At eleven, Ruby stood and stretched, turning off the television now that the main news broadcast had finished. “Well,” she said, book in hand, “good night and good luck. Wake me if you want company?” Like we had done last time, sharing our shift for extra security.
But I had become someone different, too, in the time she’d been gone. “I’m good,” I said.
She paused in front of the kitchen table, standing there until I looked up from the screen of the laptop. “Let me know who you see out there,” she said. Her eyes flicking away, like she didn’t want me to read any more into her bet. Like it mattered what I saw. That it wasn’t just a game.
* * *
I WAS LATER THAN I intended. I left again just after eleven-thirty, taking a flashlight from the kitchen drawer this time. Flicking it on as soon as I closed the door behind me. At night, the stillness seemed rife with possibilities. The stifling humidity, the crickets and the frogs, the faraway sound of an animal darting into the woods, a door slamming shut inside one of the homes.
Ruby’s words echoed as I passed the Seaver house: that I wouldn’t be the only one out here. My eyes trailed to the upstairs right window—Mac’s bedroom—where I could see the warm glow of a lamp beside the closed curtains.
I was standing there, staring up, when I heard it: the sound of metal on metal. A gate opening or closing. From the direction of the pool.
I kept the flashlight trained ahead of me—maybe the couple I saw leaving on my last walkthrough, neglecting to secure the gate behind them.
But the gate was closed now. I pulled at the bars just to check, but the latch was secure, the clang of metal against metal echoing through the night. I paused with my hand on the iron rungs, listening closely. I arced the beam of my flashlight across the surface of the pool—still and quiet—and then the pool deck.