“A voice … a whisper … anything like that?”

“No. No, what do you mean?” she’d asked with rising alarm.

“Nothing, I just …” He shook his head. “I was probably just hearing my own breathing.” Then he asked if the running footsteps had been hers.

She said yes, probably yes, she probably ran, at least she thought she had, maybe sort of stumbled, walked fast, maybe—couldn’t actually remember, being in a panic—feeling her way to the bedroom, where she kept her flashlight on her night table. “Why do you ask?”

“Just checking my impressions,” he said vaguely.

He didn’t want to speculate aloud on the alternate possibility that the intruder had bounded up the staircase out of the basement as Kim was on her way to her bedroom, had made use of the dark to conceal himself, was perhaps at some point within inches of her, and when she came back had slipped past her out of the house.

But wherever he’d gone, however he’d gotten out—assuming he had gotten out and wasn’t crouching in the chest—what sense did it make? Why was he in the basement to begin with? Could it conceivably have been Robby Meese? Logistically, it was possible. But what was the purpose?

All this had been going through Gurney’s mind at the foot of the stairs, as he held the beam of the flashlight on the chest, trying to decide what to do next.

Rather than deal with whomever or whatever the chest might contain with no light other than what was in his hand, he’d called up to Kim, telling her to flip the light switch at the top of the stairs to the ON position—even though he knew it would make no immediate difference. Shining his little beam alternately on the chest and on the main electrical panel, he made his way to the panel. Tucking the flashlight under his arm, he opened the metal door and saw that the main breaker at the top was in the OFF position. He flipped the stiff plastic switch in the opposite direction.

The bare bulb in the basement ceiling had come on immediately. What sounded like a refrigerator motor upstairs began to hum. He heard Kim say, “Thank God!”

He glanced quickly around the basement, confirming there was indeed nowhere anyone could hide but inside the chest.

He walked over to it, fear and gooseflesh dissipated now by anger and an appetite for confrontation. A touch of caution told him not to lift the lid but to roll the chest over. He stuffed the Maglite in his jacket pocket, gripped the corner of the chest, and yanked it over onto its side, discovering from the ease of doing so that it was empty—a fact he confirmed by kicking the top open.