Page 83 of The Quiet Tenant

He was so careful.

He had made mistakes, he said. The two previous times.

On one occasion, he was too fast, and on the other, he was too nice. He let the girl live.

With me, he needed everything to be perfect.

He had a daughter, he told me, and a sick wife.

She was supposed to get better, and then she didn’t.

And now she was dying.

Soon, he’d be the only one left to take care of his kid.

He couldn’t afford to make mistakes.

He had to be there for her, he told me. She was such a smart kid. It was unbelievable, what a great kid she was.

She deserved to have one parent left to take care of her.

So things with me had to work out. There would be no messing up, with me.

I think he’d tell you it all went according to plan.

CHAPTER 58

The woman in the house

Your brain must work to accept this new reality. No cameras. No one watching.

You try the most obvious thing. In the kitchen, first with scissors, then with a knife. You strain to get the blade between your skin and the plastic band, careful not to nick yourself. You wriggle and rub and apply pressure, but he didn’t lie: strip steel cannot be cut. Not with scissors, and not with kitchen knives.

You look for tools, but of course there’s no trace of the mini butane torch. No circular saw, no special blade. What do you think he is? An idiot?

And so the GPS tracker stays on. Your dot blinks on his phone. He holds you in the palm of his hand, trapped in a virtual map.

You cannot leave. Not yet. But you can move around. There are places to explore, doors to open. Rule number nine of staying alive outside the shed: Find out what you can. Wear his secrets like diamonds around your neck.

You start in the safest spot. The bedroom. Your bedroom. There, you practice poking around. Run your hands over the surfaces you’ve never been able to touch. The desk that’s just a decoy, the chest of drawers, every corner of the bed.

Nothing happens. This is a new world, one where you don’t have to weigh every action based on his expected reaction.

You step into the hallway. Cecilia’s bedroom—she’s in there, but even if she weren’t, you’d steer clear. This is her world, and you’re not violating it. The bathroom? He’s never let you in there unsupervised. Told you not to go during the day. Told you to keep to your bedroom, the kitchen, the living room. You know what this means: there are things in there he doesn’t want you to access when he’s not around. Nail clippers, razor blades, pill bottles?

Time to find out.

With trepidation, you step into the bathroom. You are here, without him. Without his eyes watching you undress, his gaze sticking to you as you stand in the shower.

You open the medicine cabinet. Aftershave, mouthwash, deodorant, toothbrush, comb, pomade, floss. Pieces of him, like a theater dressing room.

In the cabinet underneath the sink, you find Drano and toilet cleaner with bleach. Extra soap bars, Windex, a small stack of clean rags. His other life—the clean one, the organized one. The bathroom of a single father with a firm handle on his household.

No time to waste. You step back into the hallway. His bedroom—you hesitate. Wrap your hand around the knob and twist it open. Push the door open—no. Yes. No. Yes.Yes.

You hover at the entrance. His bedroom. Where he lies at night, defenseless, unaware of the world around him. Thick green carpet on the floor. A queen-size bed, impeccably made, not a wrinkle on the flannel sheets.

You tiptoe inside. He has a nightstand—bedside lamp, a paperback next to it. You can’t see clearly from here, but you think you recognize one of the thrillers from downstairs. The nightstand has a drawer. Shut, of course. Full of possibilities. What does he keep in there? Reading glasses? Sleep aids? A gun?

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