I was as tired as I could ever remember being as I pulled the station wagon up the narrow driveway and came to a stop twenty-five feet from my front door. I liked my simple house with two bedrooms and an attic a hobbit couldn’t fit in. My front porch light was on a timer and illuminated the pathway, but the inside was pitch-black. That wasn’t good. I always left one light on in my kitchen. Normally, I could see it through the front window, and it cast a little light across the whole house. I didn’t want Bart walking into a wall in the dark. Someone had turned it off.

The only defense I had was my Navy knife, which I dug out of my front pocket and flipped open. I use it as a tool, but its original purpose was as a weapon. The door was still locked, and I wondered if the light had just burned out. Still, I entered carefully, slightly crouched with the knife in front of me. Clouds had obscured the moon, and the inside of my house could have been a cave.

I was relieved to hear Bart’s nails click along the tile as he came to me. But he whimpered slightly, something I rarely heard. I felt my way to the wall and flipped the switch that turned on the single light. Instantly my house seemed more natural. It was a light I was used to. Then I walked around and turned on several more lights, taking some time to lean down and comfort Bart. The dog was spooked. His wide little body, a cross between a boxer and a bulldog, was shaking.

The place looked in order. I checked the back door and the windows, and everything was secure. But there were a few little things out of place. The magazines on my coffee table were too straight. I wasn’t that neat. They were usually plopped in an uneven pile. The drawers in my kitchen were not quite how I had left them. I remembered grabbing a pen and paper to make a grocery list and leaving my main junk drawer a mess. It was still chaos, but not the same chaos that I left it in.

My house had been searched. By professionals. Probably in the late afternoon, so they thought they were leaving everything in order when they shut down all the lights. I took a quick glance through the bedrooms and single bathroom, but nothing obvious was missing.