Slim panels of opaque glass flanked the door, and the one on the left was smashed in halfway down. Someone had kicked it in, presumably, to reach inside and unlock the door. This wasn’t, I told myself, as alarming as it might seem. Stefanie must have walked home, or gotten a lift, and without her keys couldn’t get into her own house.

I would pay for the glass, I told myself. And any other damages, or cab rides. Whatever. Any expenses Stefanie Knight incurred as a result of my stupidity, I would make them up to her. In addition to offering blanket apologies.

I rang the bell. With the glass broken, I could hear the inside chime clearly.

When no one showed up after about ten seconds, I rang it again. Waited another ten seconds, and knocked on the door. Hard.

I crouched down and put my head in front of the broken glass. “Hello?” I shouted. “Ms. Knight? Anyone home?”

Nothing.

If I had learned anything in the last few days, it was to not go into people’s homes unannounced. Even though the front door might be unlocked—even though I had a key that would open it if it wasn’t—I was not setting foot in this house without an invitation.

I pulled out my cell phone and the scrap of paper with Stefanie Knight’s phone number on it, and punched it in. I held it to my ear, and when I heard it ring, with my other ear I could hear a phone ringing within the house. It was like stereo.

After four rings, the machine kicked in. “Hi, this is Stef. I can’t get the phone right now, so please leave a message.” I opted not to.

I could have left the purse in the house, tossed it through the broken window, but anyone could break into her place now, so that didn’t seem like a plan. Should I drive back to Mindy’s and see if she was there, trying to get into her car? Maybe she had a spare set of keys, came home and got them after breaking the window, and had gone back for her Beetle. Or maybe she’d gone to the Valley Forest Estates office to get some help from someone there.

I could drive around trying to find her, but all roads led back here. Maybe it made the most sense to camp out front in the car.

Or, I thought suddenly, instead of a phone message, I could leave a note in her mailbox.

There wasn’t enough space left on the scrap of paper, so I went back to the car, grabbed my checkbook from the glove compartment, and tore off the print-free cardboard strip at the back. I wrote, “Dear Ms. Knight: Found your purse, will drop it off at Valley Forest offices tomorrow morning. Zack Walker.” And added, again, my e-mail address.