I explained everything hurriedly: my daughter had heard my husband talk about an accident, the house smelled of gas, the front door was tampered with, we were outside. The operator told me to move away from the apartment immediately and not to try to re-enter for any reason. They had already sent police and firefighters.
“Is your husband still inside?” he asked.
I felt a chill.
“No. He left half an hour ago.
“Is there anyone else with access to the property?”
I thought of the silent house, of the half-lowered blinds, of the hidden buzz of the installations.
And then I saw it.
The white van parked across the street.
I hadn’t noticed it when I got to the garden because it was partially covered by some trees. His windows were tinted. Engine off. A man at the wheel.
Looking at us.
My pulse shot up.
“Yes,” I whispered. I think there’s someone watching the house right now.
“Get out of there,” the operator said, and her tone changed. Can he run?
I didn’t answer. He was already doing it.
I grabbed Lily and we ran to the house of the neighbor across the street, Mrs. Harper, a seventy-year-old widow who always swept her driveway in her dressing gown and whom Derek considered “an unbearable meddle.” I crossed the garden without asking permission and started knocking on the door.
“Open it!” Open up, please!
The truck started.
A low, threatening noise.
It took Mrs. Harper forever to open it, but when she saw my face and Lily’s she asked no questions. He pulled us inside and closed with a double lock.
“Call the police,” I said, panting. They’re coming, but there’s a man outside.
“Good God,” she murmured.
We peek through a crack in the curtain. The truck was still there. Motionless. As if waiting for a sign.
And then the signal came.
It was not a cinematic explosion. Not at first. It was a dull, hollow blow, as if the house were breathing its last from within. The front windows vibrated. A second later came the real rumble.
The façade was lit up orange.
The windows shattered outwards.
The front door was thrown out in a cloud of smoke, wood and fire.
Lily screamed and buried her face in my abdomen.
I couldn’t move.
