“Oh, I left that there,” Doug said quickly, picking it up, hiding it. But Tritia knew instantly with a feeling of terror that he had never seen the envelope before. She had been the last person to use the bathroom, just before going to bed, and there had been no mail in the bathroom at all.

He’d been inside the house.

“Check Billy,” she ordered, running down the hall, through the kitchen. She was panicked, gasping for breath. She saw in her mind her son’s empty bed, covers thrown aside, an envelope on his pillow containing a ransom note… or something worse.

Billy’s nice too Billy’s nice too…

They ran crazily, Doug following her lead, up the steps to the loft.

Where Billy, alone, was fast asleep.

She had never really understood what a sigh of relief was, though she had read the phrase often enough in novels, but she breathed a sigh of relief now, an exhalation of the air she had been holding in her lungs as she prepared herself for the worst. Her eyes met Doug’s, and both of them began silently searching through the loft to make sure the mailman wasn’t hiding anywhere.

The loft was empty.

They combed the rest of the house, carefully searching the closets, the cupboards, under the beds. Doug checked the windows and the locks on the door, but everything was as it should be. Finally, satisfied that the house was clean, that there was no one there, they returned to the bathroom.

Doug put a reassuring hand on Tritia’s shoulder.

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” she demanded, pushing his hand away, turning on him.

He stepped back, surprised by her sudden fury. “What?”

“I said what the hell’s wrong with you? You’re all gung ho about going to the police and trying to get them to do something about the mailman, but when he comes in our own house when we’re asleep and leaves a letter on the goddamned toilet, you pretend like you left it there and nothing’s wrong.”

“I didn’t pretend like nothing’s wrong.”

“What did you do, then, huh?”

“I just didn’t want to scare you.”

“Didn’t want to scare me? Didn’t you think about our son at all? What if the mailman was still in the house? We all could’ve been killed.”

“I wasn’t thinking right, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay. You endangered all of us. You didn’t want to scare me? I’m already scared. I’ve been scared all summer! But I’m not some helpless little nitwit who has to be protected from what’s going on. Goddammit, I at least expect you to treat me like an adult.”

“You’ll wake up Billy,” Doug said.

“The mailman was in our house!” she screamed. “What do you expect me to do? Whisper?”