Nick worked on his homework until nine, finishing everything that was due tomorrow, before deciding to quit. It had been a long day, and he was tired. Ordinarily, he would have masturbated in the bathroom while changing into his pajamas, ejaculating into the toilet. But today he waited until he was in his bedroom, taking a wad of Kleenex with him and doing it under cover of the blanket.

Just in case there were still some cameras in the house that had not been found.

Thirteen

THIRTEEN

1

The electricity was off when Kyle opened the back door to Brave New World. It had obviously been off for some time, maybe all night, since, in addition to the lights not turning on, the interior of his little refrigerator was warm, and the small carton of coffee cream he kept in there was spoiled. The whole block might be having a blackout, and he put his sack lunch on top of the refrigerator and was about to check with Trixie to find out if the consignment shop still had electricity, when he heard a noise from somewhere in the front of the store. It was the sound of something moving around, something too big to be a rat or even a cat.

Something that almost had to be a person.

He remained in place, unmoving, listening.

The sound came again.

With the electricity out, the store’s alarm was off, and he realized that someone might have used that as an opportunity to sneak in.

Or had cut the electricity in order to sneak in.

“Who’s there?” he demanded.

Silence.

Kyle looked around the storage space for some kind of weapon but found only a boxcutter on the middle shelf. Picking up the metal rectangle, he pushed out the blade. “Who’s there?” he called again.

Slowly, he walked toward the front of the store, blade extended.

He had almost reached the cash register when, in his peripheral vision, he saw movement off to the left. It looked like a shadow, the shadow of a boy, and, facing it full on, he watched it duck behind a bookcase, merge into the wall and disappear.

Not sure he’d actually seen what he thought he’d seen, Kyle walked over. The store was silent, and there was no one in it but him. The shadow, if shadow it had been, had disappeared. He ran his fingers over the bricks in the wall. There was nothing to prove that anything had happened, and he was ready to put the experience down to an overactive imagination, when he realized that this was exactly the same spot where he and Nick had first heard that weird tapping.