Juno dashed for the front door. Aches and pains forgotten, she moved like twenty years had just fallen off her limbs. She’d moved like this once before, when she’d stolen a block of cheese from the corner store; the cashier had spotted her sliding it into the pocket of her hoodie. The front door faced the park, so if she walked out casually enough, maybe no one would notice her.

She was five steps away; she could see the stained-glass windows that flanked the door when the handle started rattling. Juno skidded to a stop, balancing on her heels, quite certain she was having a heart attack. There was movement on the other side of the stained glass. Was it normal for a heart to beat side to side, up and down, side to side, up and down? Juno had always been fast on her feet—she’d spent her sixties being homeless, which had certainly improved her survival skills—and in that moment, her instincts told her to move. As a key fitted into the lock, she reached for a different door handle—was it the coat closet or the junk closet? She couldn’t remember; without pause she backed herself into what she thought was the junk closet—the one with the golf clubs and the snowboards leaning against the back wall. What else…what else had there been in here when she’d looked? She remembered a crate of tennis balls, old textbooks…nothing they would need, she hoped. She let a jagged breath out through her nose; she was trying very hard to hold still, but her body was shaking.

The front door opened; Juno held her breath. She held still, everything so still. There was suddenly a whoosh of noise as traffic and other outside sounds filtered into the Crouch house, into the closet where Juno was hiding. She thought she could feel a breeze on her ankles from under the door, but then it was gone as the door slammed closed. The sound of footsteps moving away from the closet and Juno. Light footsteps, she noted—Winnie. Had she come home to check the progress the men were making? Clearly she’d surprised them, too, as they’d been scrambling to collect whatever they’d left in the house.