“Dad? Where is she?” Fear in her voice this time.

“Not home yet, I guess.”

Through the window the trees were black. There was color in the sky above the hills.

I turned on the bedside light.

“Vee,” I said. “Why are you up?”

“Forget it,” she said.

“No, it’s three in the morning. What’s bothering you?”

“I heard something outside. Like maybe footsteps.”

“It’s a footpath, Vee. People walk there.”

But my brave little daughter stood there shivering in her nightgown, eyes filling with tears, so I got up, pulled on a T-shirt and underpants, fetched a heavy flashlight from the kitchen drawer, and headed outside.

Someone had spray-painted the outer wall by Licia’s bedroom window. White paint on black brick:

CHERISH

I looked out across the parkland. Lights shone bright above the black tarmacked paths. Whoever had done this was gone.

Vee stood staring at the word. “Is this a threat?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

She must have seen something in my eyes. She began backing toward the door of the building.

“Vee,” I said, “we’re calling the police now.”

She nodded, turned, walked into the apartment. I found her in the kitchen, checking the door latches. She pulled at the blind cord. On the other side of the window the metal slats dropped into place.

“How can they threaten Licia? She’s not even here.”

“We don’t know for certain it’s a threat, Vee.”

But she wasn’t listening. Not to my words. Her head was tilted to one side.

“The bedrooms,” she said very quietly.

“Vee,” I said, “listen to me . . .”

“No, I heard something . . .”

“I don’t hear anything.”

Again she tilted her head. “You really don’t hear that?”

I listened. Nothing.

“Oh my God,” she said. “Franklin.”

She threw open the passageway door. At the end the door into Franklin’s room was open, and the door beyond that from Franklin’s room into ours. You could see our bedroom window at the back of the building, and the stepped hills beyond.

“Your window,” she said. “Was it open?”

“Vee,” I said, “please . . .”

“GET OUT!” She shouted the words at the top of her voice.

“Vee, we are both very tense.”

“GET OUT!” A scream this time.

A movement in the shadows. Franklin’s room. Then a figure, black-clad, framed in the doorway, darting away.

I ran at the figure.

Franklin’s voice; a loud wail.

I stopped level with his crib. Franklin was on his feet, hands locked around the bars, terror etched into his face.

On the white wall above the crib a word painted in black paint, still wet:

PROTECT

“Vee,” I shouted. “Pick him up.”

The figure was at the bedroom window, pushing the lower edge of the frame outward.

I launched myself into the room and across our bed, saw the right leg lift from the floor and disappear through the frame.