The People Next Door (17 page)

Mick couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he kept imagining himself sinking to the bottom of the lake, some stranger
diving down into the murk to haul him out. Amy had been waiting for him when he came home from work, sitting in front of the
TV with the volume low, watching a reality show featuring a precocious child chef whose apprentices were divorced parents
learning how to make a proper school lunch.

‘How was your day at the office, honey?’ she’d said dreamily, not looking up at him. The wine bottle was on the coffee table,
nearly empty.

‘What’s wrong with you?’ he said.

She scoffed with ugly laughter.

‘Look, I can’t sit around here doing nothing,’ he said. ‘And in case you still care, I think I figured something out about
why our revenues have been so low these past few years. I need to decide out how to handle it, but things are going to turn
around in a matter of days.’

‘That’s good. I’m happy for you.’ She wasn’t even listening.

‘Where are the kids?’ he said.

‘B’s in bed. Kyle’s out with his friends.’

‘Just out? Do you know whose house? Are there parents involved?’

‘Who can say? He’s like his father that way. You can ask, but how do you know he’s telling the truth?’

‘All right, Amy. I get the message. Jesus.’

She clicked off the TV and dropped the remote on the floor. ‘Don’t “Jesus” me. You’re the one who’s running around scaring
your family half to death, Mick. But then, that’s nothing new. I just want you to know, next time you do something stupid
and drown, I’m not going to fall apart trying to save you.’

He stared out the patio windows, noting the lights on in the new house. ‘Listen,’ he said.
Man on the terrace, man in the water
. ‘I know things have been a little strange since I fell in. I don’t know how to say this … I think someone’s been following
me.’

Amy stood and took her wine glass to the kitchen. She dumped the remains into the sink and took the bottle of Advil from the
cupboard. She paused, pills in hand, staring at him.

‘Following you,’ she said.

Mick nodded at the back window. ‘Have you met them yet?’

‘Who?’

‘The new neighbors. They’ve moved in, haven’t they?’

Amy cleared her throat. ‘I met the wife. Cassandra.’

‘You what? Why? Why would you do that?’

‘They’re our neighbors, Mick. What am I supposed to do?’

‘Fucking hell. When was this? What’s she like?’

‘She’s shy, quiet. I don’t know when they got here. It was a few nights ago. Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘What else do you know about them? What do they do? Where did they come from?’

‘I don’t know, Mick. I haven’t had time to run a credit report and background check. What’s this got to do with someone following
you?’

‘I think we should stay away from them,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘For a little while. I don’t want you near them.’

She came at him a few steps. ‘What are you talking about? What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t think they’re normal,’ he said.

‘Normal? Who’s normal?’

‘I don’t think they’re … like us.’

Amy scowled. ‘What do you think they’re like?’

‘They want something from us.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Think about it,’ he said. ‘They just appeared the night we got back from the lake. That house was empty for months. I remember
looking at it that morning, when I was dealing with the boat cover. There was no one there. Then we got home and you went
inside and there was a guy on the terrace, spying on me.’

‘Spying,’ she said. ‘I see. And now you think our new neighbors are following you, is that right?’

‘No, yes, there’s more, though,’ he said. ‘I talked to Coach today and he said, he was sure he did not save me. He said someone
else, this blond guy, saved me and I
crawled out on my own. Did you see anyone else with me on the dam?’

Amy was staring at him as if he were speaking in tongues.

‘Why did you say Coach saved me?’

Amy did not answer.

‘You don’t know what happened,’ Mick said. ‘You don’t remember what you saw from the boat ramp or anything else that happened
before you got to me, do you?’

Amy opened her mouth and closed it. She looked frightened, but was quick to dismiss whatever crossed her mind. ‘I’m not talking
about this with you,’ she said. ‘You’re being paranoid and I am not going to indulge whatever this is. I can’t get into this.
I can’t handle it.’

‘We may not have a choice.’

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘What do you think is going to happen? What am I supposed to do?’

‘I don’t know yet. But I don’t want
anybody
in our business or privy to our home life until all this stuff with Roger and Bonnie is sorted out. Someone’s been snooping
around the restaurant, listening in on my meeting with Gene, and shit is going down that you don’t want to be a part of.’

‘Well, now I think you have to tell me. You’re not being fair.’

Mick stared at her. ‘I don’t want to upset you any more than I have to.’

‘It’s about the restaurant,’ she said. ‘We’re going to lose it, aren’t we?’

‘No. No. I know who the embezzler is and I can get it all back.’

‘Who?’

‘Sapphire.’

Amy began to simmer.

‘I’m working on it,’ he said.

‘What are you waiting for? Go get him!’

‘I have to be sure, Amy. And this isn’t about Sapphire. Someone else is watching us. I’m just telling you, whoever those people
are, do not go getting all involved with them until we know we can trust them.’

Amy laughed. ‘Get involved? Trust them? They’re our neighbors. You think they’re going to ask us to join a cult?’

‘I have a bad feeling. Something’s not right back there, I can feel it.’

‘You have a feeling? What feeling? Where are all these feelings coming from?’

‘Jesus, why do you have to bust my ass every
time I ask for one little favor? Why can’t you for once just say, “Okay, honey, sure, if it will make you feel better, I’ll
avoid that for a few days because I realize it upsets you?” Why is that so goddamned hard?’

Amy crossed her arms and mocked him with her calm. ‘Okay, honey. If it makes you feel better, etcetera. But you’re being really
shitty right now and I’m entitled to make new friends. You have no idea how lonely I am.’

‘Yes, I do.’

Amy threw up her hands. ‘And yet, as I keep telling you, nothing changes.’

They fumed at each other a moment. He sensed that if he pushed back any more tonight, nothing good would come of it. He nodded.
‘I’m just asking for a little space here, so please, don’t encourage them. Not right now.’

‘What are you going to do about the accountant?’

‘I’ll handle it,’ he said.

‘You better,’ Amy said, as if there would be consequences if he did not act soon. ‘I’m going to bed. You should do the same.’

And so he had, but now he couldn’t sleep. Maybe he was being paranoid, but maybe there was a good reason for that. He sat
up, mashing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. The bedside lamp was off and the large picture window was black with
clear flecks of rain catching on the glass too gently to be heard.

Footsteps shuffled quietly in the hallway. Mick recognized the cautious gait.

‘Kyle?’

His son cleared his throat, did not enter the bedroom. ‘Yeah?’

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yeah, Dad. Are you doing okay?’

‘Go to bed.’

‘I am.’

‘And stop running around town like a goddamned hustler.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You’re scaring your mother.’

‘Okay, sorry.’

He waited for Amy to pop out of her room and berate the kid, but Kyle shut his bedroom door before she was roused. Mick pulled
on a pair of jeans and made his way to the bathroom in the master suite and urinated against the side porcelain, careful to
avoid thundering the lagoon.

In the kitchen he thought about making himself a sandwich, but wasn’t hungry. He had no appetite any more, nothing tasted
good. He drank half a bottle of acai berry juice Amy had seen advertised on the Home Shopping Network. It was supposed to
help you crap with A-list regularity and it tasted like it would succeed in fulfilling its advertised promise. The bitter
fluid tumbled inside him and his mouth watered and he just made it to the sink in time. He vomited in silence and felt better
immediately. He wiped his mouth and splashed warm water over his face. He felt cold again, chilled inside and out. Felt like
he was catching something. Probably just anxiety. There was only one thing that would allow him to get back to sleep and he
figured he might as well get on with it.

The rain was warm and delicate on his face and bare feet. He kept close to the house to avoid triggering the spotlight as
he dropped over the deck railing, onto the grass. A long white car slid down Jay Road, its single red taillight fading like
a wetted flame.

He walked the other way, hewing to the tree line, up the cracked asphalt of the old Jenkins driveway until the palazzo was
in full view. He stopped outside the front gates, mindful of the cameras. They weren’t moving, but
he didn’t trust them. There weren’t any cars in the turnaround. Every window was dark. Even from outside, the house felt empty.
And yet he knew it wasn’t.

He went across the rear of his own property, toward the patch of city-owned open space. Seen from the sky, Boulder’s greenbelt
formed a loose, dark band around the town, sealing off development and preventing Boulder from becoming an extension of the
continuous sprawl that stretched from Louisville to Denver. The green belt kept the environmentalists from going rabid, leaving
token habitats for the prairie dogs and bike-path fanatics. Infringing upon this preserved space was one corner of the long
white stucco wall the owners had constructed, with a Spanish-tiled riser every dozen feet or so. Mick saw no additional cameras.
He moved closer, the wall’s flat top a few inches above his head, providing privacy for the compound and shielding him from
view. As he drew around the rear of the house, he realized he was looking for a place to jump over.

And then what? What exactly are you looking for, champ? Even if you get over without setting off the alarms, what do you think
you’re going to find?

And:
Didn’t we have a sort of nightmare about this same little adventure? How did that one turn out? Not well, as I recall
.

But it didn’t matter. There wasn’t a doorway to hell on the other side, no obsidian pool with pale corpses set in the ground.
It was just a house, and he was drawn to it. Something was waiting for him in there, and he did not believe it was some random
family or innocent smoker
out on the terrace. Maybe a man, that third man, or maybe something other than a man.

He planted his hands and levered himself up (no limb abrasions this time) until he sat astride the barrier. On the southern
side, the house’s rear three-story facade seemed even taller. But it did not tilt or change shape. The yard was empty, the
newly laid sod showing its seams. There was one long patio at ground level, made of pale stone, set against a wall of windows
that extended at least twenty feet to each side – enough exposure to light a solarium, kitchen, and great room. But it was
impossible to know what lay behind them; the windows were solid black at this hour.

A shallow set of stairs curved down to a swimming pool. It was covered with a black tarp almost indistinguishable from the
grass. Emboldened, he walked the top of the wall, stepping over the risers and making a left turn, bringing him to the southeast
corner. The tarp was stretched taut like a trampoline, and Mick imagined jumping, wondering if it would swallow him into the
water or launch him out across the lawn.

He began to walk quickly atop the fence, back toward his house. The fence top was flat, perhaps twelve inches wide, and he
grew overconfident. Eight or nine paces along, his right foot slipped and he flailed and dropped into the yard. He landed
on his right side, his knees absorbing the brunt of the impact, and rolled across the soft sod, then lay still. He waited
for motion-detector lights to flash on, the howl of an alarm, but nothing changed. The house was still quiet, dark, uncaring.

Smooth, real smooth, champ. Isn’t this about the point where the ground opened up and showed you your family writhing on a
liquid autopsy table?

Shut it. It was just a bad dream
.

But now that he was on the other side, why not take a peek? If someone was awake, they would have confronted him by now. The
south-facing windows loomed above him, eight unusually large black rectangles. They were set in tracks, with thin steel cables,
and Mick assumed this whole wall was convertible to open air. He was also sure that if he were to press his face to one, he
would be able to see inside.

He told himself not to do it, but his legs were already carrying him across the lawn, onto the terrace. His heels thudded
along the stone and he shielded the sides of his face.

The first thing he noticed was the cold. The glass was so bracing, he was surprised it was not frosted. Some kind of serious
air conditioning was being pumped into this room, against the glass, which felt like a refrigerator shelf and made him think
of the Straw’s meat locker, aging steaks ripening with blood.

The second thing he noticed was … nothing. He could not see beyond the violet-tinted shade screen built into the glass. He
squinted, pressing closer, but it was too dark. He craned his neck, peering in at a severe angle.

Something
was
there. You just had to view it almost sideways.

He pressed his face closer until his right eye was almost touching the glass, and gradually the room began
to reveal shapes, the outlines of objects: a closed wooden door of wide planks set into the far wall. Two couches facing each
other over a coffee table. In one corner, under a mantle of stone, was the deep black suggestion of a fireplace. The rest
was open and empty, with a high ceiling and the stone floor spanning at least thirty feet in either direction. It wasn’t a
great room; it was a court, a veranda that could host one hundred guests who need never rub elbows.