Page 74 of The Midnight Lock (Lincoln Rhyme 14)

A bed. A three-legged dresser, propped against the wall. A television, with basic cable. No computer. Father was afraid I’d email someone for help and I would have. Food would be set at the top of the stairs three times a day. There was a bag for laundry.

My father was serious about my being a prisoner and told me to pack up clothes, books, games, whatever I wanted. I was going to be taken out of school for “health” reasons but I would read my lessons and take tests at the end of the semester.

I did as ordered and collected two boxfuls of items and clothing from my room and descended into the prison.

“You ruin your life, that’s your choice. But when you threaten my life’s work, that’s the end of it.”

He added that he was sorry it had come to this. But actions have consequences. The first sentence was a lie. The second, obviously, he passionately believed in.

The air was either too chill or too warm and always damp. The solitude was a worm. The quiet was a scream. The boredom was like pepper in my throat. The mindless television killed my spirit and, I was convinced, my brain cells. I’d start books. I’d lose interest.

I would scream at times, cry, sit in a dark corner huddled for hours. Think about killing myself. What would be the most efficient way to die?

What saved my sanity—and my life—were locks.

The DeWalt 345, the Morgan-Hill, the Stoddard. The elegant impregnable devices became the center of my subterranean world. I found a safety pin in one of my boxes and tried to pick each one. I had no idea what I was doing and thus had no success. I remembered the satisfaction of opening the bedroom door with a modified coat hanger key but, with these devices, I was unable to duplicate that warm, marvelous sensation of the latch clicking home and freeing me.

I would stare at them for hours—the ones on the back door were just past the foot of my bed. After some hours, they appeared to begin to move, to swell in size, to shrink into dark holes, to sway or to shine with sparkling, swirling light.

I began to talk to them, and I believed they replied to me. They had three different personalities.

After five months, my father released me, I’m sure at the behest of my mother, who was largely cowed by him but had argued strongly against my imprisonment. I could hear them upstairs—the tone and the give-and-take, if not the actual words. He issued a stern warning that I’d go back inside if I ever peeped again.

I nodded, agreeing submissively, but felt no contrition whatsoever.

My solitary had let me see who I truly was. The deprivation—and the ensuing ordeal—convinced me that only peeping could bring me comfort.

Those terrible months had also taught me I had to be smarter. And to make sure I would never be imprisoned again.

At a secondhand bookstore I bought theUltimate Guide to Lock-picking, 10th Edition, the most comprehensive tome on the subject ever written. At a home improvement store I bought a set of lock-picking tools, surprised they were available over the counter.

What better locks to hone my skill on than the three models that had kept me imprisoned? I still remember that day when I raked open the Morgan-Hill pin tumbler, which was described in the book as a nearly unpickable lock. I was in heaven. After a few weeks I was able to open all three locks on the doors in minutes.

Nothing could keep me in.

I began making Visits once more, now far smarter and more careful. I only went out late at night, when Father and Mother wereasleep. I would dress in black and choose only the houses that I could approach under cover.

WhatI saw made little difference. Sometimes it was mundane, girls sipping soda. A grandmother knitting. Boys at a computer game. Sometimes men and women together, coupling, sweaty and lost to the world. The occasional fight.

Sometimes I did more than spy. One night I left a condom in the backseat of the car owned by the wife of the lawyer who had been responsible for the imprisonment. Let the couple make sense of that but whatever happened I think it didn’t end well for either of them.

Consequences …

Other people who had crossed me would get a Visit too. I’d leave knives outside their doors. A doll in their window. Once I painted a swastika on the right rear fender of a Mercedes owned by a man who’d yelled at me about something. The man would probably get all the way to work before he’d begin to wonder about the staring.

Those Visits were about justice. The others? They just made me feel good.

Then, finally, I was away to college, a good one, given my father’s money, and into the real world.

I made half-hearted attempts to get well. All I wanted was meds, to get the peeping under control. I’d tell the doctors a variation of a story, substituting an addiction to video games for peeping but describing in detail my imprisonment, which raised a shrink eyebrow or two.

Dr. Patricia dressed in beige, unoffensive outfits and had an utterly unsexy but engaging way about her. She might have been thirty-five; she might have been sixty.

“You were thinking about a job change?” she once asked me.

I told her the truth—that unlike my father I was not career minded. “I flit.” I actually said that, and added, “Like a butterfly.”

“You’re young. You have time. Just ask yourself: What might you like to do, what’s enjoyable that you can earn a living at?”

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