The director had smiled. “I’m going to teach you how to use that,” she said. “Far better to know what to do and not have to than to not know what to do when you absolutely need to.”
Sarah thought at that moment that for all the time she had remaining as Red Two, she would keep exactly that thought in mind.
33
Back door. Flowerpot. Spare key.
Karen had parked a block from Sarah’s empty house, waited for night to drop around her, and then walked two additional blocks in the wrong direction, frequently looking over her shoulder. She realized that merely by her being in Red Two’s neighborhood, her destination was patently obvious. Her feelings were typical of the crazy-making behavior that the Wolf had installed in all of them: Walk the wrong direction. Imagine a killer outside your window. Hear things. See things. Don’t trust anything, because if you let your guard down you are going to die. And you might just get killed anyway.
Karen stopped on the street and breathed in slowly. She had a small backpack on her shoulder. The scientific part of her considered the depth of fear and disruption in the lives of each of the three Reds. I can’t be a doctor or a comic. Sarah can’t be a widow. Jordan can’t be a normal teenager, if there is such a thing. She was almost overcome by the notion that everyone faces some end someday, but it is the uncertainty of how it’ll arrive that keeps people chugging along. Change that equation-inject a fatal disease or a sudden accident or a faceless murderer into the algorithm of dying-and nothing is exactly the same again.
She turned sharply and headed down the street that ran behind Sarah’s house.
“The neighbors in back have navy-blue shutters on their front windows and a door painted bright red. The house is shiny white. It’s all very patriotic and they light it up at night. There’s no fence in front-you can just walk into the backyard. In the rear, over in the northeast corner, there’s a kid’s wooden jungle gym. You climb halfway up the ladder and from there you’ll be able to jump the chain-link barrier that separates my place from theirs. There’s a tree at the edge of the property. Hide there for a minute and then head to the back stoop. No one will see you.”
Sarah’s instructions were explicit, a schoolteacher’s organized, well-thought-out plan: Do this. Do that. Class, pay attention! Karen kept her head down, sneaking glances at the houses on the street, looking for the red, white, and blue. When she spotted it, she stuck close to the side of the house and ducked into the backyard.
She was moving as fast as she could. She saw the jungle gym and sprinted toward it. In the distance she could hear a dog bark-At least it’s not a wolf’s howl, she thought-and just as Sarah had told her, she climbed midway up the ladder. The structure swayed a little as she reached out with her right foot for the top of the chain-link fence, and then, with a push, launched herself over.
Karen landed, pitching forward awkwardly onto the damp grass behind Red Two’s dark home. She scrambled over to the base of the tree where Sarah had told her to hide and waited until her breathing slowed. The adrenaline rushing through her ears sounded like a waterfall, and it took a few minutes for her to be quiet enough to pick out night noises: A car several blocks away. A far distant siren. More dogs, but not enough sound to make anyone imagine they were truly alarmed.
Wait.
She listened for muffled footsteps. She craned her ears toward any noise that might be a man following in her path.
Nothing.
What she needed from Red Two’s house was not complicated. If she had been thinking correctly, she would have told Sarah to bring some with her when she faked her suicide. But Karen hadn’t been that wise, and now she had to get them herself.
She had considered simply walking up to the front and letting herself in, not caring whether the Wolf saw her or not. But this bit of bravado had seemed wrong. Secrecy is better, she told herself, although why eluded her.
Back door. Flowerpot. Spare key. Karen scrambled to her feet, hunched over, and ran forward.
At the steps leading into the house, she dug her hands into the cold dirt of the flowerpot. It took seconds to find the key, wipe it clean, and get to the door. In the darkness, she fumbled a bit thrusting it into the lock. She heard the dead bolt click open, and slipped inside.
Shadows filled the house. There was ambient light from a streetlamp outside, but this did little to make the scene anything less than minor variations on black. Karen had sensibly bought a small flashlight with her-she wasn’t turning on any lights-and like a burglar, she crept through the hallways, her small lamp making pinpricks of light when she swept it back and forth.
The house seemed stuffy with death. She could see the limp light from her flashlight quiver in her hand. Sarah had told her where to look, but she still felt like she was walking across some alien landscape and that if she made any noise at all, it would awaken the sleeping ghosts surrounding her.
Tugging the backpack from her shoulder, Karen began to collect the few items she needed. She moved from room to room, avoiding the dead husband’s study and the dead daughter’s bedroom, just as Sarah had instructed her. A framed portrait from a hallway, a photograph stuck to a refrigerator door with a magnet-Karen gathered pictures for a montage. She has to seem dead. The pictures have to underscore a different time, when Sarah was vibrant with hope. The contrast is important.
She was nearly finished, just looking for a final family photograph that Sarah had told her was on the wall in her bedroom, when she suddenly thought she heard a noise coming from the front.
She could not have said what the noise was. It might have been a scraping sound, perhaps a rustle of papers. Maybe the wind, but she couldn’t recall feeling any when she had approached the back. Her first, terrifying impression was that someone was now in the house with her.
Not someone. Him.
He will kill me here.
This didn’t make sense to Karen. Sarah should die here. It’s her home. This also didn’t make sense.
Karen froze as she clicked off her flashlight. She thought every short breath she stole from the night was loud, blaring. She listened. Nothing.
Your ears are playing tricks on you.
Still, she seized the last portrait from the wall and stuffed it into the backpack as quickly as possible. She thought just the sound of the zipper closing the pack was loud and raucous.
She pivoted back to the door. No, he’s out there. Waiting for me. She tried to tell herself she was completely crazy: So this is what insanity feels like.
It took an immense amount of strength for Karen to hurl herself through the door. She nearly stumbled and fell on the stairs. She raced for the back fence, expecting to fall at any point, and surprised herself that she was able to grab the top and scramble over. The chain link seemed to snatch at her, like so many desperate fingers clinging to her clothes.
A light went on in the red, white, and blue house.
She ignored it and ran into the welcoming night, heading toward her car.
For the second time that night, Karen’s hands shook. She fumbled the car keys to the floor and cursed loudly as she reached down and groped around before finding them.
It was several minutes, and several miles, before she could feel her racing heart slow down. She imagined herself to be like a deer that has outrun a pack of wild dogs. She wanted to huddle in some safe, dark spot until she regained her composure.