“Wait a minute,” Billie whispered. “Do you hear that?” Bean listened and this time he heard it too. An incessant murmur, far off. “A television?” she wondered. “It’s coming from . . .” She turned to the stairway at the other end of the living room, well within the arc of sunlight they had invited. One arm of steps reached upward to the bedroom level above. The other led below, to the den or basement or whatever lay beyond the murkiness down there that lapped against the third step.

“Downstairs,” Bean nodded, heading for the staircase. Billie caught his arm.

“Wait a minute. Shouldn’t we check up here first? He could come down behind us.”

Charlie pointed at the window. “The sunlight cuts this room in half. Nothing can come up, and nothing can follow us down.” He looked into the murk awaiting them and swallowed hard. “Ready?”

They slipped down the staircase without a sound, immersing themselves in the inky dark. But once they reached the foot of the stairs, away from the bright sanctuary above, the cloaking gloom eased. They were in a shallow hallway, lined with several doors. The door at the very end was ajar, and bars of lamplight framed its edges. The television sounds came from there.

The adrenaline was pumping hard now. It blinded them to the empty doorways they passed, deafened them to all but the sound of their own breathing. They glided to the door like well-armed wraiths and peered through the crack.

They could see bookshelves and wood paneling, the corner of a pool table to one side, and a console television to the other. A coffee table sat in front of the couch, sporting magazines and a reproduction of a Remington bronc-buster. Willard Scott was saluting the elderly on the Today Show. But there was no one else in sight.

Bean edged the door open with the shotgun . . . a little further . . . a little more . . .