“We don’t know that he was here. The door’s locked, the windows are all closed—”

Tritia slammed the door to the bathroom, almost hitting his nose. He stood in the hall, furious with her, wanting more than anything to go back into the bedroom and crawl into bed and leave her alone in the damn bathroom. That would scare her enough to teach her a lesson. But as angry as he was, he was more afraid. She was right. They were in danger. The mailman had been inside their house, had invaded the one sacred spot where they had always felt themselves to be safe, had entered their fortress against the outside world. He stood there with his ear to the bathroom door, hoping he wouldn’t hear the sound of anyone but Tritia.

The toilet flushed and she came out a few seconds later. “Let me see the letter,” she said.

He took the envelope from the pocket of his bathrobe. “Maybe we shouldn’t touch it,” he suggested. “It might be evidence—”

Tritia ripped it open. The envelope was addressed to her, and inside was a sheet of white paper on which was written, in a flowery feminine hand, a single word:

Hi

Tritia began to tear the paper into little shreds.

“Hey,” Doug said. “Don’t do that! We need—”

“We need what?” she screamed at him. “This?” She continued to rip the letter. “Don’t you know how he works? Don’t you understand yet? Are you that stupid? He can’t be caught. He can’t be touched. The police will come and there’ll be no fingerprints, no sign of forced entry, no proof of anything. Nothing for them to go on!”

Doug stared at her, saying nothing.

“He knows what he’s doing, and he doesn’t do things that will allow him to get caught. Even this letter doesn’t mean a damn thing unless it has his fingerprints on it or we can prove that it’s his writing.”

She was right and he knew it, and the knowledge made him feel both angry and helpless. Tritia continued to tear the letter into increasingly tinier pieces, her hands working faster, more nervously, as tears escaped from beneath her eyelids and rolled down her cheeks. He reached out to grab her hands, to stop them, but she pulled away. “Don’t touch me.”

He moved closer still, putting his arms around her, pulling her close. She struggled. “Don’t touch me,” she repeated. But her struggles became progressively weaker, her protestations less adamant, and soon she was sobbing in his arms.

It was not yet eight, but Doug knew the post office would be open. He knew the mailman would be there—if he had returned from his nighttime rounds.