On the screen the cat camera app shows another thumbnail with today’s footage.
“What did you see?” I ask Blue. He blinks slowly in answer, then rolls onto his back, exposing his fluffy belly. I try not to think of the locksmith’s unintended suggestion of people living in my walls.
Looking at the thumbnail on the screen an idea suddenly occurs to me about the back door. Watching footage from outside the house can wait until tomorrow. Instead, I head straight downstairs into the kitchen and find Blue’s collar in its charger; I swivel it around and I point the lens at the back door.
If anything happens tonight, this should catch it.
Whoever it is, whatever it is, for better or worse, I will see it.
Day Four
Chapter 13
All Very Alarming
I wake up in pitch darkness,not in bed but standing in my own kitchen.
I shiver.
I must have wandered down here somehow.
Then I notice an electronic blip sound coming from the hall behind me and I feel, then see, the little metal key in my hand.
The entire house explodes with the skull-piercing wail of the alarm. My hands fly up to protect my ears, the key tumbling away.
I run for the hall. Is someone in the house? Why was I in the kitchen? Why was I by the back door with the key in my hand when I’d hid it in the cutlery drawer?
I tap in the alarm code numbers. The noise continues.
I tap in the numbers again, squinting into the glowing screen.
Instructions appear in the readout panel of the alarm unit.
Call to Reset.
No, no, no.
The sound is too much. It is too loud to think, to function. I pat my nonexistent pockets for a phone but of course I do not have one. It is still on the nightstand, upstairs.
I snap back to it and race upstairs, taking two steps at a time, the blare of the alarm shrieking into the night. I will be waking the entire neighborhood. The embarrassment and panic are unbearable, and inescapable.
I skid into my bedroom, grab the phone, and race back to thealarm panel, jabbing the number shown onscreen into my phone keypad.
I look out of the frosted glass of the front door and see neighbors’ lights flicking on along the street in the darkness. It’s happening.
My call connects to the alarm call center, but I cannot hear, so I bound back to the kitchen, grab the key glinting in the moonlight, and burst out into the garden. I have to run all the way to the end wall before the noise fades enough to hear.
As I wait, phone to ear, I notice other lights bursting on in the houses that back mine.
My face is burning hot with panic in the darkness.
My hands shake as I clutch the phone, anxiety prickling through my veins while the call connects.
Breathlessly, I explain the situation to the cheerful-sounding Scottish woman on the other end of the phone.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. It’s out of my hands, unfortunately. Once the call has gone through to the police, we only accept a disarm code from an attending officer,” she says. Her tone is sympathetic.
“What?!” I yelp into the receiver. “The police are coming here?”
