Chapter Nineteen

Margolin walked quietly down the long, dark corridor on the second floor. The hardwood didn’t creak and the only sounds came from the enormous hand-carved grandfather clock that lorded over the upstairs hallway. He passed the room that would have been a nursery a decade earlier if things had been different. The master bedroom and his wife were still thirty feet ahead and shrouded in the muted glow from the porch light downstairs they always kept on, letting the neighbors and any strangers passing through the sanctuary of Brentwood that the Margolins were home. He slowed his steps as he neared the door of the upstairs guest bedroom. Perry paused, turning to look at the heavy wooden door, a glint of light from downstairs reflecting off the varnished surface. He reached out and touched the door lightly, felt its solid surface. A minute passed. A soft rustling of someone asleep and moving about in bed escaped from the crack at the bottom of the door and then stopped. Perry thought about Carl and the daughter he left behind. A deep sigh, his hand still on the door, and then he heard a brief snort and gentle snoring echo in the air coming from the master bedroom. He dropped his hand but kept looking at the door. He turned and started walking toward the sound of his wife, unbuttoning his shirt and wondering what Carl’s death would do to the life he’d worked hard to make for himself.