Kevin O'Brien - Disturbed

And now this family of four was slaughtered just last week.

Nervously rubbing her arms, Molly returned to the kitchen. Going through the cabinets and the refrigerator, she started to pull out all the ingredients for Toll House cookies. She didn’t want to think about the cul-de-sac murders now, not while she was the only one home. She felt uncomfortable enough in Angela’s house.

The place still seemed to belong to Jeff’s ex-wife. Hell, half the spices in the kitchen cupboard had been bought by Angela. The glasses she drank from, the plates the family used — they were all Angela’s.

Molly started mixing up the white and brown sugar, eggs, and butter in a bowl. She kept glancing over at the sliding glass doors in the big family room off the kitchen area. The backyard was rather small — with just enough room for a gas grill, a patio, and a small strip of grass. The forest started only fifteen or twenty feet behind the house. Some evenings, raccoons came right up to the other side of the sliding glass door. When Molly was alone in the house at night, she occasionally got scared and imagined something else emerging from that dark forest to watch her through the glass, something on two legs instead of four.

She thought about closing the drapes, but they were so damn ugly — maroon with gold fleur-de-lis on a heavy, velvetlike material. Hello, Angela, what were you thinking?

Given her druthers, Molly would have redecorated the entire first floor. She didn’t share Angela’s fondness for hunter green, maroon, and gold — and the charmless, dark, Mediterranean furniture that made the big family room look like the lobby of a small, cheesy Best Western. She also thought the tall grandfather clock that didn’t work was kind of ugly. But Molly told herself that Jeff’s kids were going through enough changes in their lives. They probably didn’t want to see their mother’s house transformed into something else entirely. Nevertheless, every other week, Molly would make a subtle alteration to Angela’s drab, almost impersonal design scheme. One week, she added jazzy throw pillows to the hunter-green sofa. Another week — and about time — she got rid of a tall, ugly standing vase with a dried flower arrangement in it.

Molly figured three dozen cookies were enough for Angela and her pals. They’d probably turn up their noses at dessert anyway. It was a competitively thin crowd.

She left the cookies out to cool and started washing the dishes. The phone rang. She grabbed the kitchen cordless on the third ring. “Yes, hello?”

“It’s above the heart now,” whispered the woman on the other end. At least that was what it sounded like she said.

“Pardon me?” Molly said. She pulled the phone away from her ear for a moment so she could glance at the caller ID screen on the receiver. CALLER UNKNOWN, it said.

“Pardon me?” Molly repeated into the phone. “Hello?”

There was a click on the other end of the line.

Frowning, Molly hung up. She moved over to the glass doors and peered out at the backyard once more. The sky had grown dark, and the woods looked gray and a bit sinister. Trees and shrubs swayed in the wind. She wondered if the cul-de-sacs where the killer had struck were in wooded areas.

“Would you cut it out already, Molly?” she muttered to herself. She checked the lock on the sliding door.

She really wished Jeff hadn’t mentioned the cul-de-sac murders earlier. Of course, before Jeff brought up the serial killings, she’d been unnerved by the news of Ray Corson’s death — another senseless murder.

Molly heard the washing-machine buzzer go off downstairs in the basement. She’d put her coffee-spattered sweatpants and some other clothes in the quick cycle a half hour ago. With a sigh, she plodded to the basement door. Opening it, she switched on the stairwell light. It sputtered and went out.

“Oh, terrific,” she muttered. “I really need this now.”

She could see the overhead in the rec room still worked. The staircase was a bit dark, but Molly held on to the banister and quickly made her way down there. The rec room was the kids’ domain. In one corner sat a rowing machine belonging to Jeff, but in the ten months they’d been married, Molly had yet to see him use it. She guessed Jeff and Angela bought the maroon sectional sofa and black end tables at Ikea. The fat, clunky big-screen TV was from before the day of HD and plasma. Chris must have been in charge of the art on the walls — which included a Mariners poster, a lighted Hamm’s Beer clock, movie posters of Zoolander and Avatar , and four pictures of dogs playing poker. The Ping-Pong table had become a catchall for everything from Erin’s Barbie Dream House to a science-project volcano Chris had built with papier-mâché, paint, and some chemicals.

There was also a small walk-in closet — with shelves full of board games, sports equipment, and toys. The door was open a crack. Molly paused in front of it. She imagined Jeff lying dead on the floor in there, his throat slit — just like Lyle Winters. The thought made her skin crawl. She tried to push it out of her mind.

Nervously rubbing her gooseflesh-covered arms, Molly retreated to the laundry and utility room. With its bare floor, exposed pipes overhead, and shadowy nooks around the furnace and water heater, the big room was kind of creepy. It had become cluttered with unwanted furniture and knickknacks from Jeff’s years with Angela. There were also some collapsed folding chairs leaning against a square support beam, and boxes of Christmas decorations.

Molly emptied out the washer and tossed the damp clothes in the dryer. While she threw in a strip of Bounce, her mind started to wander toward that morbid direction again.

Why does he put the bodies in closets? Why does he leave practically all the lights on inside the houses of his victims? The police must have come up with some theories. Maybe she’d ask the cop at the potluck.

While setting the timer for the dryer, Molly thought she heard a creaking sound above her. Quit it, she told herself. It’s the house settling, stupid — or maybe something outside. You’re all alone here. From everything she’d read, the Cul-de-sac Killer usually struck at night. And right now, it was ten o’clock in the morning. Quit it, she told herself again.

Molly closed the dryer door and pushed the start button. The dryer drum began rolling and roaring. But the sound she heard past the racket was unmistakable.

Upstairs someplace, a door slammed shut.

“Shit,” Molly whispered, a hand over her heart. She quickly reached over and switched off the dryer. The rumbling noise stopped, and the hot air gave out one last wheeze. Molly stood perfectly still, and listened. She didn’t hear anything upstairs.

Glancing over at Jeff’s worktable, she made a beeline for it and snatched the crowbar from a hook on the wall. She took a deep breath and crept back into the rec room. Then she made her way up the darkened stairs to the first floor. She cautiously looked around. Everything seemed just the way she’d left it five minutes ago.

“Hello? Is anyone home?” Molly called, a nervous tremor in her voice. She wondered if maybe Chris had decided not to go to school today after all — and he’d come back. “Chris? Is that you?”

No one answered.

Molly checked the locks on the front door, the garage door entrance, and even the sliding glass doors — which she’d just checked minutes before. All of them were locked. But that didn’t make her feel any better.

Tightening her grip on the crowbar, she headed up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs, she saw Erin’s bedroom door was closed. Erin never shut her door — not even while she was sleeping in there.