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The Fold by Peter Clines-Excerpt
The Fold by Peter Clines-Excerpt
“I just don’t think it’s that good,” said Denise. “It doesn’t do anything
for me.”
Becky bit back a smile, even though Denise couldn’t see it over the
phone. They’d had this conversation every other week for two months
now. It still made for a good distraction, though, and helped fill up the
time until Ben got home.
It always worried her a bit when Ben was away. Ben was in charge of
high-security projects. Mostly weapons. Often in high-r isk areas.
Granted, this had been one of the lowest-r isk work trips he’d ever
taken. Just four days in San Diego. And on a non-weapons project.
“I mean, Marty really likes it,” Denise continued, “but it just seems
like nothing but boobs and snow and blood. And the frozen zombie
things. I just don’t get them. It feels like not a lot ever actually happens,
y’know? Five years and they’re still talking about winter.”
Becky gathered up some socks, underwear, two T-shirts, a skirt, and
a bra that had been scattered across the bedroom floor. She was a horri-
ble slob whenever she had the house to herself. Worse than she’d been
in college, for some reason she couldn’t figure out. “So why do you keep
watching it?”
“Ehh. Marty really likes it. He won’t admit it, but I just think he likes
all the boobs. Are you guys still watching?”
She walked to the bathroom, and shoved the armload of clothes into
the hamper. The bathroom was a mess, too. Her yoga clothes and more
underwear. How had she gone through so much underwear in four
days? “We’re a couple episodes behind, but yeah,” she said. “I think he
likes the boobs, too. And the dragons.”
Becky put her foot in the trash can and mashed down the small pile
of bathroom trash, just enough so it didn’t look like it was overflowing.
“We were talking about doing a DVR marathon this weekend. Some-
thing to relax a bit after his trip.”
“When’s he get back?”
“His plane landed a little while ago,” she said. “He sent me a text
saying he had to stop at the office and give a quick report to his boss.
Probably be home any minute now.”
“Cleaning up your mess?”
She laughed. “You know me too well.”
“I should let you go, then.”
“Yeah, probably.”
“Give me a call next week,” Denise said. “Maybe we can all do dinner
at that new Japanese place.”
“Okay.”
She hung up and tossed the phone on the bed. She looked around
and tried to spot anything else he could tease her for leaving out. There
was a wineglass on her nightstand, and a plate with a few cheesecake
crumbs. And another wineglass on her dresser. God, she was a slob.
And a lush.
It crossed her mind now and then that she should try to be one of the
good wives. The ones who kept the house clean, and had dinner wait-
ing for her husband when he came home. When they’d met, she’d actu-
ally been dressed as a 1950s housewife at a Halloween party, complete
with martini glass, apron, and a copy of an old Good Housekeeping list
of duties she was supposed to perform. He’d laughed, said she didn’t
look like the kind of woman who sat around waiting on a husband,
and bought her a drink. They’d ended Halloween night with a few
things that were not covered in the Good Housekeeping article. Fourteen
months later they were married.
She gathered up the glasses and the plate. She could swing by her
art studio in the back and grab the dishes there. There was definitely
a plate next to her computer from today’s lunch, possibly a wineglass
from last night. She could rinse them in the sink, maybe.
As she reached the studio door, a faint rasp of sliding metal echoed
from the front of the house. A key in a lock. There was a click, and then
the hinge squeaked. They’d been trying to fix that damned thing for
years.
The front door.
“Hey, babe,” she called out, setting all the dishes down on the desk.
“How was your flight?” Ah, well. He wouldn’t notice them right away
in the studio. And it wasn’t like he didn’t know her by now. She took a
few steps toward the hall, then decided to take the back staircase. It was
closer, and she’d probably meet him in the kitchen.
Something tickled her brain as her foot hit the first step. The lack of
something. The usual chain of sounds she heard when Ben got home
had been broken. She hadn’t heard the hinge squeak again, or the door
close. Or his keys hitting the table in the front hall.
“Babe?”
She lifted her foot from the step and walked back down the hall.
From the top of the staircase she could see their front door. It sat open
by almost a foot. She could smell the lawn outside and hear the traffic
heading for the beltway.
Ben wasn’t there. She didn’t see his keys on the table. His briefcase
wasn’t shoved under the table where he always tossed it.
Becky took a few steps down the stairs. She peered over the banister
to see if he was lurking in the hall. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d
leaped out to scare her.
The hallway was empty.
She walked downstairs to the front door. It hung open in a relaxed,
casual way. The same way it did when she was heading out to grab the
mail or to growl at Pat from down the street for letting her dog crap on
their lawn.
Had she left the door open when she went out for the mail earlier?
Maybe just enough for the wind to push it open? Had she imagined
the sound of the key? Ben was due home any minute. She might’ve just
heard the hinge squeak and added everything else.
She leaned out the door. It was cool. This late in the afternoon, the
front of the house was in the shade.
Ben’s car was in the driveway. It was right where it always landed, in
front of the nearer garage door. She could see a faint shimmer of heat
above the hood.
Becky pushed the door shut. The hinges squeaked. The latch clicked.
“Are you in here, babe?”
Floorboards settled. The air in the house shifted. Someone was in
the kitchen. She recognized the creak of the tiles near the dishwasher.
“Ben?” His name echoed in the house. She took a few strides toward
the back of the house. “Where are you?”
The silence slowed her down, then brought her to a stop.
“If this is supposed to be funny, it’s not.”
Nothing.
She weighed her options. There was still a chance this was a trick. A
joke gone bad. Ben would leap out and make her shriek and she’d hit
him and then welcome him home.
It didn’t feel like a trick. The house felt wrong. Ben’s car might be
in the driveway, but there was a stranger moving through their home.
They owned a gun. A Glock 17 or 19 or something. She’d taken four
classes and gone shooting at the range three times. It was a badass, se-
cret agent–level gun. That’s what Ben had said. They’d probably never
need it, but better to have it and not need it than need it and not . . .
The Glock was upstairs. In their bedroom. In the nightstand. She
could take six long steps back and be at the main staircase.
Or take three steps forward and get a view into the kitchen.
She took two steps forward.
Ben’s briefcase and travel bag sat in the hallway. It was a beat-up,
gym bag sort of thing he’d had for years. He still used it because it held
three or four days’ worth of clothes, but it fit in an overhead compart-
ment. Cut half an hour off his travel time to not be waiting on luggage.
“Babe, I swear to God, I’m calling the fucking cops in two minutes.”
Her voice echoed in the house. “This isn’t funny.”
A long groan sounded above her. The noise of stressed wood. The
spot by her studio, close to the door. Neither of them had stepped on it
in over a year because it was so damned loud.
Whoever was upstairs had stepped on it.
They were upstairs!
She looked up at the ceiling. Three seconds passed, and another
board squeaked. She could almost see the footsteps through the plas-
ter. Someone was circling around the house. Straight through to the
kitchen, up the back staircase she’d had her foot on just five minutes
ago, and into the upstairs hallway. They were near the bedroom.
Near the gun.
Jesus, why hadn’t she grabbed the gun as soon as things got weird?
But why was Ben’s luggage in the house? Why was his car in the
driveway? Had someone grabbed him at the airport? Did he get car-
jacked?
There was a panic number she was supposed to call. In case some-
thing happened to him, if someone tried to get to him through her.
He’d given it to her, and she’d never even put it in her phone.
It was in the desk in her studio. Of course.
Becky stepped into the kitchen and grabbed her cell phone from the
counter. Then she grabbed a knife from the big block. A wedding pres-
ent from one of Ben’s old college friends. It was a great set. The blade
of the butcher knife was almost fourteen inches long and sharp as hell.
And the handle sat well in her hand.
They’d all laughed at the idea that knives were a bad-luck wedding
gift.
She slid her fingers over the phone’s screen and tapped in 911. She
held off pressing call. There was still a chance this was a bad joke.
Some stupid plan to get a scream or a laugh or excitement sex or some-
thing, but he sure as hell wasn’t getting any off this.
And it wasn’t his sort of thing.
She circled through the living room. It had a thick carpet, almost
silent to walk across. Just make it through the house, give Ben one last
time to admit he was an idiot, and then out the door. She’d call 911
from the front yard.
She was halfway across the living room when she heard the sound
of metal sliding across metal. It was a fast, back-and-forth with a hard
snap at the end. She’d heard it a lot at the range. She’d been the one
making it.
She swallowed.
Becky looked down at her phone. Could she raise her voice enough
to talk? Did the person upstairs know where she was in the house?
What did 911 do when they got a silent call? Did they trace it and send
a car? Did they hang up?
She glanced past him up the staircase, then her eyes went back to the
gun. Had they both been playing tag with an intruder? “Okay,” she said.
“Calm down and point that somewhere else.”
Ben stared at her and came down two more steps. The pistol didn’t
waver. His wide eyes flitted to the knife, then past her to the front door,
and over into the living room. “Where is she?”
“Babe,” she said, her eyes on the pistol, “you’re freaking me out with
the—”
“Where is she?” he shouted. His voice echoed in the hall. The glass
in the door trembled behind her.
She shrieked and her mind stumbled for a moment. “She? She who?”
Ben stepped off the staircase and glared at her. He raised the pistol.
The barrel was just a black square with a hole in it. He was aiming it
right between her eyes. “What have you done with her? What do you
want with us?” He took a step toward her, and then another.
Becky couldn’t tell if he was angry or sad. The black hole kept pull-
ing her eyes away from his face. It was just a few feet away. She could
see the little trembles and shifts as he squeezed the grip. “Babe,” she
pleaded, “what are you talking abou—”
“Who are you?” he yelled. “Where the hell is my wife?”