I woke before my alarm.
For a few minutes, I lay still, looking at the ceiling.
The house was quiet.
I had heard no footsteps during the night.
No voices.
Nothing that could explain what Mrs. Gable had reported.
I got out of bed and began getting ready for work.
I chose my usual clothes and put my phone in my purse.
I made coffee, but I didn't use Arthur's mug.
I couldn't bring myself to touch it again.
Instead, I used an ordinary cup from the cupboard.
I drank half of it and left the rest on the counter.
Then I checked the front door.
Locked.
I checked the patio door.
Locked, too.
I was looking for reassurance, but I knew what I was really doing.
I was memorizing the state of the house before I left.
If anything changed, I wanted to know.
At 7:50, I walked out with my purse and locked the door behind me.
I made sure the deadbolt turned all the way.
Then I got into my car and drove away.
I followed my normal route.
I passed the familiar houses and the businesses I saw every morning.
I kept my eyes on the road, trying to look like a woman going to work without a care in the world.
A couple of blocks away, I pulled into a parking space behind a local grocery store.
I sat there with the engine off.
For a moment, I questioned what I was doing.
I was about to sneak back into my own house and hide beneath my bed.
If nothing happened, I would have spent the morning frightening myself over a neighbor's complaint and a misplaced mug.
If something did happen, I wasn't sure I was ready to see it.
I took my phone out of my purse.
Then I put it away again.
I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to call.
I didn't want to tell someone I suspected a stranger was entering my home when I had no proof.
I also didn't want to hear someone tell me I was imagining things.
So I got out of the car.
I walked back toward my neighborhood and entered the rear alleyway.
The route took me behind the houses, away from the front doors and the street where neighbors might notice me.
I moved quietly.
I remember being conscious of every sound I made.
My shoes against the pavement.
My purse brushing against my side.
A gate moving somewhere nearby.
When I reached my property, I stopped.
I looked toward the back of my house.
The patio door was where I expected it to be.
Nothing looked different.
I approached it and tried the handle.
It opened.
That simple movement made me pause.
I had locked the door before leaving.
I was sure I had.
For one terrible second, I wondered whether I had somehow failed to secure it.
Then I remembered checking it twice.
I slipped inside.
I closed the door without letting it slide hard against the frame.
The house was silent.
I stood in the kitchen, waiting.
Nothing happened.
I looked toward the counter where I had left my coffee cup.
It was still there.
I could see the living room from where I stood.
The furniture hadn't moved.
No one was waiting for me.
I had the strange feeling that I was trespassing in my own home.
I knew every room.
I knew the floorboards that made small noises beneath my feet.
I knew where the sunlight usually fell in the morning.
Yet I was moving like a stranger who had entered without permission.
I went upstairs.
My bedroom door was open.
I entered and looked around.
The bed was neatly made.
The dresser stood against the wall.
Arthur's old documents were among the things I had kept after his death.
I hadn't looked through them in a long time.
I didn't know why I suddenly wondered whether somebody else had.
I took out my phone and checked the time.
I had been gone only a short while.
There was still a long stretch of the morning ahead.
I lowered myself to the floor beside the bed.
For a moment, I hesitated.
I was not proud of what came next.
I lifted the edge of the bedspread and crawled underneath the bed frame.
The space was tighter than I remembered.
Dust gathered near the wall.
I had to turn slightly onto my side to fit comfortably enough to wait.
I held my phone in one hand.
My other hand rested against the floor.
I kept the phone ready to call 911.
That was the plan.
If I heard someone enter, I would wait until I could identify what was happening.
If I felt threatened, I would call for help.
I had no better idea.
The first few minutes passed slowly.
I could see only part of the room through the narrow space between the bedspread and the floor.
The legs of the dresser were visible.
So was a strip of carpet leading toward the bedroom door.
I watched the doorway.
Nothing happened.
I listened for the front door.
Nothing.
The house made the usual little sounds that houses make when nobody is moving through them.
The minutes dragged on.
I began to feel uncomfortable.
My shoulder hurt against the floor, and I had to resist the urge to shift position.
I worried that my phone might ring.
I worried that I might sneeze.
Most of all, I worried that I had made a terrible mistake.
Perhaps Mrs. Gable had heard a television.
Perhaps someone nearby had been shouting in a yard.
Perhaps the mug had an ordinary explanation I had failed to remember.
I had built an entire plan around a handful of unsettling details.
Still, I stayed where I was.
I kept thinking about the three afternoons Mrs. Gable had described.
Three days.
The same part of the day.
A woman shouting inside a house that should have been empty.
I thought about the mug again.
Arthur's mug.
I wondered whether someone had taken it from the cupboard where I kept his belongings.
I wondered who would want to use it.
Then I forced myself to stop.
I needed facts.
Not guesses.
I needed to know whether someone would come through the front door while I was supposed to be at work.
That was all.
I checked my phone.
Almost three hours had passed.
My legs were stiff, and I was beginning to think no one would come.
I could have crawled out and admitted that the morning had been wasted.
I could have gone downstairs, collected my things, and driven to the office late.
Instead, I stayed beneath the bed.
Just before noon, I heard a sound from downstairs.
A lock turning.
I stopped breathing for a moment.
The sound came again.
Metal moving against metal.
Then the front door opened.
Someone had entered my house with a key.
I gripped my phone.
Footsteps crossed the living room.
They were steady and unhurried.
Whoever had come in wasn't stumbling around or searching for a way out.
They knew the house.
They knew how to get inside.
And they had no reason to believe anyone was waiting for them.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Woman Who Walked Into My Bedroom Knew Where to Look, and the First Thing She Said Was Not My Name
My Neighbor Said She Heard Someone Screaming in My Empty House, and I Had No Idea Who Could Be Inside
Part 2 of 12
