Stephen White - Warning Signs

She jotted down the plates on all the vehicles, hoping that she'd happened upon an evening visit by the man named Ramp. But she didn't think so. Lucy wasn't feeling particularly lucky.

Sixth took her back toward downtown. But she didn't make it all the way downtown. All along she knew that the Peterson home would be her last stop before heading back to her place.

She cruised Jay Street twice, slowing each time in front of the Peterson house. The lawn had been mowed for the first time that spring. The crime-scene tape was down. The do-not-enter warnings were gone from the front door. The light in one of the upstairs windows was dim, not dark. The ubiquitous flicker of the television screen from Susan Peterson's bedroom, present. She's back home, Lucy thought during her first pass. She felt an urge to park around the corner where she'd always left her car during her prior visits, but resisted, settling instead for permitting herself one more loop past the house.

On her final drive by the house she wondered if she wished things were the same as they always were. As they were a couple of weeks before.

She couldn't decide. She found that interesting, still.

Although she'd promised herself that no matter what she saw in the upstairs window, she absolutely wouldn't stop, she pulled over to the curb and parked her car behind an aging Toyota pickup, killing the engine in the middle of a melancholy ballad by Sinéad O'Connor.

That's one girl, she told herself, who's more confused than I am.

Lucy reached over to the passenger seat and checked her purse to make sure she had everything she might need.

She did.

The air was heavy, the way it is in July when a thunderstorm has just passed. But the April night was dry. A chill permeated her clothing. Lucy kept her head down, counting curb sections, reading the dates imprinted on the borders of the cement work. The oldest section she found had been installed in 1958.

Nineteen fifty-eight must have been a very good year for concrete. The pour was still in good shape. By comparison, some of the newer sections, including one done in 1993, already appeared due for replacement.

She had to cross over Pleasant Street to get to the Peterson home. When she looked up from her reverie to check for traffic, she was almost hit by a bicycle riding on the wrong side of the street.

The walkway that led from the sidewalk to the Petersons' front door was constructed of brick pavers set in a herringbone pattern. The path meandered from start to finish in the elongated shape of a lazy S . Lucy cut the curves, straightening the path into a line.

She had no illusions that she'd find Susan Peterson home alone. She suspected that Susan would have convinced someone-one of her doctors, probably-that her husband's murder had left her in need of a full-time aide. Lucy knew that there was another possibility-that instead of an aide, Susan's caretaker might be one of Susan and Royal's daughters.

Either way, Lucy knew that whomever she discovered in the house would be a woman.

Susan didn't like men close by.

L ucy had neverused her key in the front door lock, didn't know if it would even work. Since she'd had the key, she'd always come in through the back door.

She tried the key in the front lock. The thin metal wand slid into the brass slot naturally, as though it belonged. She rotated her hand and the key turned evenly in the lock. She depressed the thumb lever and pushed the heavy door inward. It released with a gentle whoosh and Lucy stepped inside the house.

She paused. The living room was to her right. She tried not to think about that night. About Royal.

About Sam.

"You okay, Luce?"

She failed in her attempt to ward off memories of that night; the images flooding her left her feeling a momentary pulse of disorientation. The same almost-vertigo she'd felt when Sam was kneeling over the body.

"Holy shit. You know who this is, Luce?"

She shook her head to clear the slate. Ever since she was a little girl she'd cleared her head the same way she'd erased images from her Etch A Sketch. This time it took two shakes.

The stairs to the second floor were right in front of her.

Lucy heard water running in the kitchen at the rear of the house. That would be the aide or the daughter.

Staying to the far right edge of the staircase because Royal had warned her once that a couple of the treads squeaked, Lucy took the stairs one at a time. She didn't touch the banister.

From the landing at the top of the stairs, she could see that the door to Susan's bedroom was almost closed. Through the narrow opening Lucy could hear the distinct sound of the television.

Martha frigging Stewart.

She paused and thought about Grant.

She was consciously aware that she was looking for a reason to go back down the stairs, back out the door, back into her bright red Volvo. But Grant wasn't going to be that reason. He'd find out everything soon enough and at that point he'd do what he'd do. Lucy thought he'd run like hell, but allowed for the possibility that he might surprise her.

With her left hand Lucy reached into her purse. With her right hand she pushed open the door.

Susan looked up, probably to demand something of the aide.

Lucy said, "Susan. We need to talk."

L ucy e-mailed her fiancé before she scrubbedthe makeup from her eyes and slid into bed. She wrote to tell him that she loved him, but she knew in her heart that her words were nothing more than shouting in a canyon.

What she really wanted to hear was the echo.

W hen the phonerang twenty minutes later, she still wasn't asleep. Wasn't even close to being asleep. She checked the time out of curiosity. The clock read 11:05.

"Hello."

"Lucy Tanner?"

"Yes."

"This is Brett Salomon from The Daily Camera ."

In a clear voice, a cop voice, Lucy said, "How the hell did you get this number? I've told you before, Mr. Salomon, I'm not giving interviews. Good night. Please don't call here again."

"Wait, please. Don't hang up. This call is a courtesy for you, Detective Tanner. Hear me out. In tomorrow morning's edition we will be running a story concerning you and the Petersons, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to comment prior to publication. It's up to you, but I suggest you hear me out."

Lucy's heart felt as though it were a new thing in her chest. The suddenly rapid beating got her attention like a loud knock at the door. She swept her hair off her forehead. "Concerning me how? What's the story about?"

When he started talking again, Lucy thought Salomon's inflection had changed, as though he was reading, or reciting something that he'd rehearsed. He said, "Detective Tanner, we will be reporting in tomorrow morning's paper that Susan Peterson is your mother and we will be characterizing your relationship with her. Feel free to comment. I'd like to print your side of the story, as well."

Lucy pressed the mouthpiece of the phone into her right breast and told herself to breathe. The room was dark and the foot of her bed faced the wall. She thought she saw brilliant flashes of light, like flames, erupt in three or four places where she should be seeing nothing but the familiar shadows of her room at night.

She could still hear Brett Salomon's voice. It sounded disconnected, hollow, distant. But urgent, pressured. He was saying, "Detective? Detective? This is your chance to comment. Detective Tanner? Detective Tanner?"

Lucy hung up the phone and then she vomited all over the sheets.

I misled my wife in order to get out of thehouse after midnight. An emergency, I said. Lauren, half asleep, assumed that I meant an emergency with my practice. And now, sometime shortly after midnight, I was sneaking down the street, head down, collar up, hoping no photographers' lenses were pointed my way as I hustled into the old house on Pine Street where Lucy Tanner had a second-floor flat.