As she watches, a white beam of light pries apart the darkness, nosing through the debris. Following it, dimly silhouetted, is a great, lumpish, ape-like creature. Ape-like, it moves over the obstacles with great dexterity. At the side window, it straddles the sill, preparatory to ducking out onto the porch roof. Rose can see him clearly in the glow from the streetlight. Not his face—a ball cap’s brim throws that into shadow—but his body. It is thick: Thick arms muscle out of a short-sleeved black T-shirt; legs like fire hydrants stump out of knee-length black shorts. His gut is a classic beer belly. He oofs as he bends over to get his head outside the window. On his feet are deck shoes. They offend Rose. A man ought not to set about murdering a person while wearing deck shoes. It is as if he doesn’t take killing her seriously.

Rose doesn’t have the upper body strength to remain on the skylight, splayed like a cat on a screen door. Her fingers are growing numb where they clutch the edging; they are losing their grip. Before the proverbial hit the fan, she remembers, she did three sets of ten men’s push-ups every night after yoga. Now she doubts she could do five girl’s push-ups.

She kicks off her shoes. Fixing the old, strong Rose firmly in her mind, she pulls up as hard as she can. Nice and sticky with sweat, feet and toes scramble monkey-like against the roof, helping her ascend. With a final surge, she gets her forearms onto the shelf where the skylight is seated into the roof.

No longer is she in danger of an imminent plunge to the ground.

She is in way more danger than that.

Light pierces her left eye. Monster Man is leaning around the edge of the roof, eyes hidden in the cap’s shadow. He holds the flashlight in his left hand. In his right is a knife, a big knife. Probably he has watched Crocodile Dundee one too many times.

“I’ll scream,” Rose whispers.

He puts the flashlight into his pants pocket. Then he puts the knife in his teeth. Rose has seen that in cartoons, but didn’t believe anyone actually did it.

Hands free, he throws himself upward onto the roof in a bouncing belly flop. One hand makes the ridge, then the other.

The sight of the knife pries the last ounce of adrenaline from Rose’s glands. It gets her to the top of the skylight. From there she is able to straddle the ridge of the house. Weight off her arms and legs, for an instant she feels as if she could levitate into the stars.