“I know,” Dee says, smiling. “The new neighbor only just got here, and she’s already being a pain. Sorry. I already tried a couple houses on the street but I think everyone’s out at work.”

The door swings wide. The man says stiffly, “I guess, if you’re quick.”

Dee steps into an underworld; a deep cave where lonely shafts of light fall on strange mounds, jagged broken things. Plywood is nailed over all the windows, with round circles cut out to let in light.

She peers to her left, into the living room. As her eyes adjust to the gloom she sees that piles of books and old rugs litter the wooden boards. There are bare patches on the yellowed walls, where pictures or mirrors once hung. The walls are a deep green, like a forest. She sees a beat-up recliner, a TV. There’s a dirty blue rug on the floor that looks like it’s made of little pills. The whole place smells of death; not of rot or blood but dry bone and dust; like an old grave, long forgotten. Everything is decaying. Even the latch on one of the back windows is rusted through. Flakes of dark red litter the sill. The tired detective Karen’s voice is in Dee’s head. A chaotic home environment. Unmarried. Socially marginal.

Behind her the front door closes. She hears the three locks click into place. Each hair on the back of her neck stands slowly, individually on end.

“Kids?” she asks, nodding at the pink bicycle, which lies on its side.

He says, “Lauren. I don’t get to see her as often as I’d like.”

“That’s rough,” Dee says. He is younger than she had first thought, early thirties, maybe. Eleven years ago, he would have been just in his twenties.

“The bathroom is down the hall,” he says. “This way.”

“Great music,” she says, following. The song that’s playing somewhere in the house is another surprise, heartfelt country music, sung in a lovely voice. She sees that Ted has bare patches on the back of his head, as though handfuls of hair have been pulled out by small fists. For some reason this brings the light, airy graze of terror.