The Break-In Read Free

screen. There wasn’t a crack wide enough for a cricket to wiggle through, either. Which was a good sign. It meant the crickets might be in the house still.
    The room smelled of fresh paint, even now.
    The day before they’d moved in, his father had woken him when it was still dark. “Do you want to have a great experience?” he had asked.
    Alex had pulled on his jeans and jumped in the car. His dad explained their plan as they drove. “We’re going to surprise Mom. You know how she loves the ocean? We’re going to paint the front rooms in the new house a nice pale blue.”
    “Painting,” Alex had said. “Is that the ‘great experience’?”
    “No,” his dad replied.
    Just as the sky started to brighten with morning sun, they pulled into a Tim Hortons drive-through. Alex asked for hot chocolate, but his dad shook his head. He bought them each a coffee and a muffin. They could eat the muffin, his dad said. But they couldn’t touch the coffee. Was this the “great experience”? Again, his dad said no.
    The car came to a stop in the parking lot of the big hardware store. Coffee in hand, they walked inside, Alex watching for signs of a great experience.
    Finally, they stood facing aisle 6B. It was lined to the ceiling with cans of latex and oil paint. Professional painters in beat-up, paint-splattered white overalls studied the selection. Alex’s dad looked at him and nodded. Coffee time. Alex sipped and made a face—the coffee was screaming hot and tasted bitter and burnt. Anyway, he followed his dad down the paint aisle. They walked past the guy with big muscles and a gold hoop earring. Past the two skinny ones, old enough to be grandfathers, arguing about which beige their customer wanted. And past the young woman taking photos of paint samples with her cell phone.
    At the end of the aisle, Alex’s dad stopped. Waved back toward all of the painters. They all had coffee.
    Finally, Alex understood. Up early, coffee in hand, at the hardware store getting ready for an honest day’s work. He and his dad had been part of something that morning.
    Anyway. Today the paint smell made his stomach hurt. There was too much of his father in this house.
    He tried to pull the couch away from the wall so he could check on yesterday’s lettuce. See if any crickets had taken the bait. The sofa was heavier than he expected; he couldn’t move it very far. He squeezed down behind it, feeling around in the dark for the lettuce. Or, even better, but far less likely, an actual cricket. But the lettuce was gone. Which was a good sign. It meant the crickets were alive and well.
    As he backed himself out from behind the sofa, his hand fell on something small and hard. He closed his fist around it.
    It was a brass bullet. From his dad’s old .32 calibre Smith & Wesson, the one he used for target practice on days off. A revolver, with a bullet chamber that turned every time the gun was fired. His dad often unloaded the revolver on the living room table. He was always careful, but this bullet clearly escaped.
    Alex slid it into his pocket.

Chapter Four

    When Marcus got home from Dr. Ling’s office, he crawled back into bed. What else did he have to do? At least when he was asleep he didn’t have to think about Lisa.
    He was up again, just stepping out of the shower, when the doorbell rang. Figured. The one time he didn’t bring his clothes into the bathroom.
    The bell rang again. Marcus dried off a bit and rushed to the door, wrapping the towel around his waist.
    The last person he expected to see was Lisa. But there she stood on the porch, sunlight creating a halo behind her head. The way she was dressed told Marcus that she was on her way either to or from the gym. To, Marcus decided. Her fluffy hairshowed that she hadn’t worked out yet. This was a girl who put her heart into everything. When she was done at the gym, she looked like she’d just dragged herself out of a puddle. Dripping wet and worn out. But still