Linwood Barclay: Too Close to Home

That caught Derek by surprise. “What?”

“With my dad. He kind of found out what was on it. The thing we were reading.”

“So what’s it to him? He thinks you don’t know about porn? And it’s not like it’s pictures. It’s just written stuff. It’s not even really porn. Not good porn, anyway.”

“Look, I can’t get into it now,” Adam said quietly. “I’ll tell you about it when I get back, or maybe I can give you a call about it during the week.”

“Don’t sweat it. If I want to read it, I’ve got the copy I made.”

“Shit, don’t let him find out about that,” Adam said. “He seemed really pissed. I don’t know why he got such a hair up his ass about it.”

“What, you think I’m gonna go up to your dad, say ‘Hey, Mr. Langley, I kept a copy’?”

“No, it’s just-”

“Adam!” It was Mr. Langley, sounding pissed, calling for him from the front step.

“Listen, man, I gotta go,” Adam said. “He’s already mad about my mom feeling sick.”

“Okay, yeah, sure, see ya in a week,” Derek said. Adam turned one way, Derek the other. Derek forced himself to call out, “Have a nice trip, Mrs. Langley!”

Everyone had to think he was leaving.

From the kitchen, a subdued “Bye, Derek.”

He bounded down the stairs for effect, opened the back door, and closed it hard, making the usual racket he always did when he left and cut across the yard and headed into the woods that ran along the edge of the lane.

But this time he didn’t leave the house. Once he’d closed the door with enough force for Mrs. Langley to hear in the kitchen, he was down into the basement in a second, heading to the far side and kneeling next to the couch in front of the sliding panel that led into the crawlspace.

Derek slid it to the left, crawled in on his hands and knees, the concrete floor hard and cold. He turned himself around, slid the door closed as quietly as possible, and held his breath for a moment as he became enveloped in darkness.

All he could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. Slowly, he exhaled, tried to compose himself. He knew there was a bulb on a pull chain in here somewhere, but he was afraid to turn it on. What if Mr. Langley happened to come downstairs for something at the last minute, saw light showing around the edges of the panel? He’d just have to sit in the dark here for as long as it took.

At least he could see what time it was. He reached into his pocket for his cell phone, made sure the ringer was off, and checked the time, the tiny screen the only source of light. Nearly eight o’clock. The Langleys had to be going soon.

He couldn’t talk, but he could send a text message. He typed out “W8ING 4 LANGS 2 GO HIDING NOW.” He pressed Send.

The idea of having his own little fuck palace for a week, it had to be the best thing he’d ever thought of. Okay, maybe not a “fuck” palace. Penny might be ready, but maybe not. But everything short of that, for sure.

He listened for house noises. Sitting cross-legged on the cement floor, jammed in between boxes of Christmas bulbs and a toboggan Adam probably hadn’t used in five years, Derek could sense Donna Langley moving around in the kitchen. A house, it was like a living thing. You stepped on the floor in one room, and it was like a pulse went running along one of the studs underfoot, and then, when it met another beam, it kept on going, like that song Derek’s mom used to sing to him when he was little, about the thigh bone connected to the hip bone, the hip bone connected to the-

“For Christ’s sake, let’s go!”

Adam’s dad. Jesus, he could be a bit of a prick, Derek thought. His own dad could sure be a pain in the ass, but he wasn’t the dick Adam’s dad was.

He could hear a bit of shuffling upstairs. Someone walking to the back door, checking to see that it was locked. Then the sound of another door, opening and closing. The front door. Derek, not daring to breathe, thought he could even hear the turning of a key in a lock.

A couple of moments later, car doors opening and closing. The engine of the Langleys’ Saab SUV coming on. Tires on gravel, perceptible at first, then receding.

And then nothing.

Derek swallowed, decided to stay in hiding a couple of minutes more to be sure. Long enough for the Langleys to get far enough away that if they realized they’d forgotten something, they’d figure it was easier to buy it along the way. His heart was starting to slow down now, things were looking good, all he had to do was-

Jesus Christ what the fuck was that crawling down his neck holy mother of God!

A spider! A goddamn spider had slipped below his collar. He went into a spasm of slapping at himself in the darkness, the side of his neck, the top of his shoulder, through his shirt. The spider had made him jump and he’d walloped his head on an overhead beam.

“Fuck!” he shouted. He threw back the crawlspace panel and practically tumbled out onto the carpeted basement floor. He reached under his collar, felt something small and mushy, pulled the shirt over his head and slapped away at his neck, desperate to get rid of the spider’s remains.

His heart was ready to explode out of his chest.

Once the spider crisis had passed, he took another moment to pull himself together. The basement was almost dark. There was probably only a half hour of light left outside, but he didn’t dare turn on any lamps. For the whole week, he wouldn’t be able to turn on lights. Maybe, here in the basement, he could put the TV on. No one would notice that from the outside, especially with the house set back so far from the main road.

But really, who needed lights for what he planned to do? He could feel his way around in the dark.

He was surprised Penny hadn’t responded to his text message. But it was time to get in touch again, let her know the house was empty. First, though, he should do a walk-through, make sure everything was okay.

He slipped his shirt back on, went up the basement stairs, saw that the deadbolt had been thrown on the back door. There was still enough light to see easily as he wandered the first floor. The front door was locked. On the wall in the front hall, the security system keypad. Derek had been in the house so many times with Adam, watched him engage and turn off the system, he knew the code. All he had to do was enter it, flip the deadbolt on the back door, and he could come and go as he pleased. It meant leaving the house unlocked, but around here, on the outskirts of town, hardly anyone ever had break-ins.

The house felt totally different, as he walked through it for the first time all alone, no one knowing he was here. He felt a charge, checking out the whole place, realized his heart was pumping overtime, his palms sweating.

He reassured himself he knew the layout well enough to manage it in the dark, even the places where he didn’t plan to spend any time, like Adam’s parents’ bedroom, where he was standing now. Big king-size bed, thick white duvet, en-suite bathroom with a shower and one of those tubs that had the jets in it. He’d love to hang out in here with Penny-maybe she’d take a bath in there with him, with bubbles and everything, just like people in the movies-but no, that seemed a bit risky. The basement couch would more than do the trick. It wasn’t so much where they did it in the house. The main thing was privacy, no interruptions.

A whole fucking week.

His phone buzzed. A message from Penny. It was about time. One word: “Well?”

Shit, he could just call her now. He punched in her number and she answered on the second ring.

“I’m in,” he said.

“Oh my God,” she said, her voice tinged with excitement.

“It’s almost dark. Come on over. I’ll let you in the back door.”