“I think you are leaving me,” he said simply.

“Just trying to open this lock. Look: kneel down here next to me, and hold this toothpick in place.”

He was still carrying his book, but he laid it now on a counter and came to kneel next to me. I showed him how I was pushing the cylinders back, and how to hold them in place.

“There are three altogether. You’ll have to hold two while I undo the third. No, don’t push so hard.” I spoke too late; the toothpick snapped in his nervous fingers. “Not to worry. Feel my fingers, feel the way I’m holding it:’

His hands brushed mine nervously, as if contact would burn him, but the next time I had the roller pushed back he held the toothpick in place, and then a second. I was working the third and trickiest roller when we both heard the car.

“Don’t move,” I said sharply. “We’re almost there.”

His hand gave a convulsive jerk and the toothpicks clattered to the floor. “Is the police?”

“I don’t know. Let’s get this damned door open. Come on.”

On the kitchen side of the house, we couldn’t see the drive. We couldn’t hear activity at the front door. We’d only heard the car because it had driven past the main entrance toward this side of the house.

Maybe Geraldine Graham had seen my light and called the sheriff, in which case the deputies would make a brief survey and leave. But if fiddling with the lock had set off the alarm, or if Renee Bayard had summoned the law, then we were in trouble.

Benjamin Sadawi was shaking too hard to help me. I looked around the kitchen. He’d suffocate in the refrigerator. But he was a small, slim boy and the bread oven was big. I hustled him over to it.

“I’m not going to leave without you, unless I’m arrested and can’t help it. But you stay in this oven until you hear from me.”

He insisted on taking the book with him. I pulled the racks from their shelves, stacked them behind the refrigerator, and half-lifted, half-bent him into place. I took one of my work gloves and used it to keep the door open a crack, enough that he could breathe and hear, and then ran back to the outside door.

I was practically weeping with weariness, but I forced myself to work methodically. If the newcomers were outside the back door … I couldn’t let my mind wander toward unknown terrors. Keep your head in the game, Vic.

One pick in place, now the second. The third tumbler rolled back just as I heard footsteps moving on the uncarpeted floor toward the kitchen. I opened the back door, pushed in the lock to keep it from closing on me again, and stuffed my makeshift tools into the nearest drawer.

“Who’s there?” I shouted, pressing myself against the wall behind the swinging door.

Two uniformed deputies came in, holding flashlights so powerful I couldn’t make out their faces; I could just see that a third figure loomed behind them.