A shrill, hair-raising scream woke seventy-year-old Maisie Fezziwig from a semi-sound sleep. Over the last half hour, she’d drifted in and out of consciousness, trying to get some shut-eye while the male counterpart sleeping next to her sounded off like a wheezy, broken-down foghorn. It wasn’t his fault, of course. It was hers. After all, she’d broken rule number one: never, ever, under any circumstances allow a man she was sleeping with to stay the night. Up to now, Maisie had never broken that rule, but after indulging in one too many glasses of red wine, she’d lost track of time and dozed off unintentionally.
To rectify her mistake, Maisie decided swift action was the best remedy. She switched on the bedside lamp, hoping that would wake him. But his arm stayed draped across her chest, his hand cupping one of her breasts. With two fingers, she lifted his arm and placed it across his own chest, letting it plop down, not gently. When that didn’t wake him, she stabbed his shoulder repeatedly with her finger, aligned her mouth with his ear, and said, “Daniel, wake up!”
Daniel partially lifted one eyelid, closed it, and rolled onto his other side. “What is it, Maisie? I’m trying to sleep.”
“Did you hear that noise?”
“What noise?”
“It sounded like someone screamed.”
He yawned. “Maybe you should turn off the TV.”
Maisie looked at the flat screen on the wall. The television was tuned to an infomercial, hardly the kind of show to produce the sound she’d just heard. She poked him again. “The noise didn’t come from inside the house. It came from outside.”
“If you really want me to get up and look around, I’ll do it.”
Although the offer had been made, he didn’t move, which suited Maisie just fine. She didn’t need him to do the dirty work. She was more than happy to get down and dirty herself.
She rose from bed, went to the dresser, and opened the top drawer. She pulled out a pair of binoculars, walked to the window, and peeked through them, canvassing each house in her neighborhood.
Sighing to express his irritation, Daniel propped himself up on one arm, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “What in the hell are you doing, Maisie?”
She shooed him with her hand. “Shh. Stop talking. I’m trying to concentrate.”
“There’s no need to get snippy with me. Come on now. Whatever you think you heard, I’m sure it’s nothing. Come back to bed.”
Come back to bed?
He’d barked the words like he was giving her an order, as if the lackluster moment of passion they’d shared an hour before gave him permission to treat her like they were more familiar than they were. It was the very reason rule number one wasn’t meant to be broken.
Ever.
Maisie set the binoculars down, picked Daniel’s pants up off the floor, and hurled them in his direction. She attempted a smile, but was certain it wasn’t very convincing. She didn’t excel at pretending. “Time for you to leave.”
“What are you talking about?” He patted the side of the bed. “Come on, baby. I could go for another round. Whaddya say?”
Baby.
A word she hadn’t been called in some time.
A word that was just eww for a woman of her age.
They’d only been intimate twice. Both times, his bedroom prowess had been mediocre at best. Trying for round three would require the kind of patience she couldn’t give. Not again. “You need to go, Daniel.”
“Maisie—”
Maisie pointed toward the door. “You heard me. Now get dressed and get out.”
Daniel stood, taking his time getting dressed, as if giving her time to change her mind. “I like you. We have a good thing going here. Can I at least see you again?”
“You’re fifty-two. I’m seventy. It was nice, but let’s call it what it was, shall we?”
He scratched his head. “What was it?”
“A bootie call. A hook-up, as teenagers say.”
His eyes widened. “You’re not serious?”
“Quite.”
She escorted him to the front door, opened it, and kissed him on the cheek. “You’re very sweet, Daniel. Thanks for a nice night. Goodbye.”
Daniel stood with his arms crossed in front of him, dumbfounded and confused, making it all the more awkward for her to look him in the eye, so she didn’t. She offered a brief smile and closed the door. As soon as his Subaru backed out of the driveway, she scurried back to the binoculars, scanning the neighborhood a little longer than she had the first time. All was quiet now. Everything appeared normal except for one thing: Sylvia Frazier’s house was pitch black, and Sylvia never retired to bed without switching on the porch light.
Maisie threw a robe over her short, fitted, black, silk nightie, then a coat over the robe, slipped into a pair of rubber-soled slippers, and opened the top drawer of her dresser once again. Besides the binoculars, the velvet-lined drawer also contained several relics left to her after her late husband passed away from cancer three years earlier. Once such relic was a revolver. And not just any revolver. A Smith & Wesson 500 Magnum. Serious heat.
Gun in hand, Maisie scampered across the street to Sylvia’s place. Finding the front door unlocked, she walked in, letting the revolver in her outstretched hand lead the way.
“Sylvia? Are you there? It’s Maisie. I’m coming in!”
As someone who’d familiarized herself with all of her neighbors, Maisie knew the layout of each house on the block. Still, she paused for about ten seconds, giving Sylvia the opportunity to reply. When she didn’t, Maisie flipped on the hall light and headed toward Sylvia’s bedroom. Halfway down the hall, it occurred to Maisie that Sylvia might not have replied when she’d called her name because Sylvia was sleeping. It further occurred to her that Sylvia might have simply forgotten to illuminate the porch light this one time. If true, the appearance of a gun-toting neighbor in the wee hours of the morning was likely to give the eighty-four-year-old woman a heart attack. Still, the lack of an illuminated front porch light was one thing; an unlocked front door was quite another.
Maisie entered Sylvia’s room, feeling her way up the wall until she felt the light switch. She flicked it on. A terrified Sylvia sat straight up in bed, yanking her blanket over her face, like the blanket could protect her if this had been an actual break-in.
Sylvia peered over the edge of the blanket, saw Maisie then the revolver. “Maisie? What the hell are you doing here? And what are you doing with a gun?”
Maisie lowered her weapon. “I apologize, Sylvia. I thought you needed help. I heard someone scream earlier, and when I saw your porch light wasn’t on tonight, I thought it may have been you. I called your name when I entered your house. You must not have heard me.”
Sylvia inserted her fingers into her ears, pulling out a pair of plugs. She set them on the nightstand. “When I’m wearing these, I don’t hear anything. My nephew’s staying here this week. He blasts the television. Without earplugs, I don’t get any sleep.”
Maisie assumed Sylvia’s nephew was to blame for the porch light being off, as well as the unlocked door. “I suppose it wasn’t you who screamed then.”
Sylvia sighed. “Of course it wasn’t. And, by the way, you can’t just walk into my house whenever you want without knocking.”
“The front door was unlocked.”
“That’s not the point. This isn’t your house.”
Maisie stuffed the revolver into her jacket pocket and turned. “You should tell that nephew of yours to lock the front door.”
Sylvia grunted an inaudible reply.
Maisie walked back down the hall, confused. She had heard what sounded like a woman’s scream, and not just any scream—a desperate cry for help. Stepping outside again, the air seemed stale, like the atmosphere had sucked it all in and zipped it up tight.
Maisie may have been wrong about Sylvia, but someone, somewhere, was in trouble.
She didn’t know how she knew.
She just did.