Thin gloves, clean and black, handled a picture frame with care as intent green eyes surveyed the portrait within it through slits in a dark pullover hood. I didn't break in here to steal pictures, the man beneath the hood reminded himself. He set the frame back precisely in its place, checking the faint dust lines around the it. They were untouched; no one would know.
He looked over the photos once more, snapshots of the residents, Craig and Kara Fleming, from youth to adulthood to marriage: young Craig fishing, a teenage Kara laughing, the happy couple now in their thirties and holding hands at the beach. The photograph he had picked up and set down drew his eyes again—a brown-haired, grade school boy in a light blue Little League uniform. It had startled him at first, made him wonder if this couple had somehow discovered… But that was impossible, of course. It was merely a portrait of Craig in his childhood. The eyes were the wrong color. Even so, had the figure felt any hesitation about proceeding with his plan, that picture swept it away.
He refocused on the task at hand; he could not risk time-consuming distractions. He surveyed the front part of the house: the rectangular table on which the photographs were displayed was situated to the figure's left as he stood in the entryway. Extending from the left of the entryway was a hallway, and to the right a kitchen that blended into a small dining room. There was a den just ahead on the left, and the figure moved into it.
It was cozy, with an inset fireplace resting cool and dark in one corner. Over the fireplace hung a large portrait of Craig and Kara surrounded by relatives, obviously from Craig's side of the family. There were children in the picture, but only with the other couples. With Craig and Kara, there were none. That fact ambushed the figure, provoking an unexpected sense of regret.
The home was modest and neatly-kept, tidy enough without that unfriendly feeling he had found in some of the more upscale homes he had recently…visited. A book lay out of place on the couch, a small mess of papers covered the computer desk; he sorted through them, leaving no trace. Not everything was perfectly in order here. These people were not the type to nitpick at every detail. They lived here. This was a home, not a showcase.
He moved silently to the kitchen. Breakfast dishes lay unwashed beside the sink and the morning's paper waited unopened on the stand-alone counter in the center of the room. He rifled through every cabinet in seconds, searching, careful to precisely replace anything he moved. He found nothing out of the ordinary.
A door led from the kitchen to the garage, and another out the side of the house to the yard beyond. He peeked out the side door window. There were a patio and green grass outside, with a golden Labrador snoozing in the shade of a wooden shed. Unlocking the door, the figure eased it open and placed one foot on the patio, just far enough to look around. The dog lifted its head and eyed him curiously, but did not bark. A garden space had been tilled at one edge of the property, and from it grassy back yard stretched out perhaps a third of an acre. It was a large lot for this neighborhood. A few well-pruned trees lined the far fence.
Everything was normal here, at least so far. This was what the figure needed to know. Craig and Kara did not appear to be the kind of dubious people the figure usually associated with when he donned his gloves and pullover hood. They were decent folks; he parried another stab of regret.
The yellow dog stretched, rose to its feet, and loped lazily across the grass to meet him. The figure didn't pet the dog, though the urge struck him. He was not here to relax. He needed to stay focused.
Information, he reminded himself as he stepped back inside. That's why I'm here. His plan would unfold in a few hours; for it to succeed, he needed specific information, needed to know what life in the Fleming home looked like from the inside. He swept back through the house, observing, noticing. Not taking, not today—just looking. Information.
Usually, with both occupants away at work and no alarm system in place, a short visit like this would have been intended for gathering something more tangible than mere data. Even so, this was too consequential a job to hire out to a lesser—what, thief? I'm not a thief, not today. More of a…spy? A detective?
Perhaps a thief after all, he decided, but not of the usual sort. Like Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to give to the poor. Yeah, Robin would be proud. The purpose is noble. But I couldn't steal from these people. He grimaced. Not anymore than I already have. He quickly suppressed any further pangs of guilt. What was done could not be undone.
He stepped past the front door and into the hall, studying everything: the wall to his right, dividing the hall from the den, lined with cabinets from floor to ceiling, each packed with (he sifted through their contents swiftly) linens, cleaning supplies, and the sorts of albums and sentimental objects that families collected; a perfectly normal-looking bathroom on his left; bedrooms up ahead, two of them at the end of the hall.
The bedroom on the left was the master bedroom, complete with a small bathroom of its own. The bed was unmade, the curtains were open, and a pair of dirty socks—Kara's, it appeared—had been tossed aside on the floor.
He perused the room without disturbing anything, then moved to the second bedroom, a guestroom as he judged by the bed, desk, and sitting chair. But the furniture was nearly obscured by tools—rakes, shears, a hedge trimmer, a box of mismatched nails, a chainsaw…and much more, too much to examine closely, half of it piled atop the bed. At last, the figure had found something unusual here; Craig's landscaping work had apparently overrun their guestroom. The figure wondered vaguely how Kara felt about that.
Something shifted in the house. There was a sound at the front door. Either Craig or Kara had come home. That was unexpected, unusual for them so early in the day.
Not good.
He glanced around, his pulse quickening. There was no time. He would have to escape through the window.
Or there might be a better option. The hall made an L, the short leg providing passage from the two bedroom doors to a laundry room. The instant he heard the front door crack open, he slipped into the laundry room and found a back door there.
He would have preferred a little more time, but no matter. The information he had gathered would suffice. This afternoon he would put it to use, setting gears in motion. His work here was done.
He placed a black-gloved hand on the back doorknob, anticipating the proper moment, adrenaline surging through his veins. Just as he heard the front door swing open fully, the figure swung the back door inward. He slid noiselessly outside, eased the door shut behind himself, and without further delay, hurried around the corner of the house and down the block, out of sight.
*****