Page 38 of The Trap by Catherine
She hadn’t been sitting here in the dark, but it hadn’t been this bright either. The floor lamp had been on, and so had the lights in the kitchen.
But now, both were off.
They’d beenturnedoff, while she slept.
Chris, Lucy thought, reaching to collect her empty wine glass and the empty wine bottle from the coffee table. He must have woken up at some stage, heard that the TV was still on, and come down to turn it and the lights off.
That’s all.
She went into the kitchen, flicked the lights on in there. Put the empty glass into the dishwasher. Left the bottle by the back door so she’d remember to put it in the recycling bin first thing. Turned the lights off again. Went back into the living room.
But still, something felt off.
She scanned the room once more and, this time, caught a ripple of movement behind the curtains, the floor-length ones that hung across the patio doors.
What the...?
For one moment, Lucy was paralyzed with pure, abject terror, convinced that someone was hiding behind the curtain, that an intruder had gained access to the house, that something terrible was about to happen—
But in the next, an explanation came to her.
The patio door was open.
She and Chris had started doing that in the evenings lately, since it was so warm outside: opening the sliding door a few inches to let the air into the room, but pulling the curtain across it to stop moths flying in.
Lucy rolled her eyes as she crossed the room to yank back the curtain before her imagination had a chance to overtake her again, and saw that she was right: itwasopen, but only a few inches.
She slid it closed, pushing the latch on the handle down so it locked, too.
She should get a glass of water, she thought, and find something with paracetamol in it to take before she went to bed. She couldn’t have a hangover tomorrow. She needed her wits about her, for what she was planning.
She went back into the kitchen, got a glass and started filling it from the tap in the sink. Her gaze drifted upwards, to the window directly in front of her.
And then something very strange happened.
Her reflection moved, but she didn’t.
Jesus, how quickly did she drink that wine? She shouldn’t be drinking at all with everything that was going on. It wasn’t safe. It wasn’t smart.
And then she realized—
There was someone standing outside the kitchen window.
A figure dressed in dark clothing with something on its head. A baseball cap. Or a hood. Or both.
Lucy caught the scream that was about to launch itself out of her throat and told herself no, no, it couldn’t be, it was just shadows, it was too much wine and not enough food, it was the patio door’s curtains all over again.
The glass in her hand was overflowing now and she let it drop into the sink and reached instead for the light switch on the wall.
Click.
The inside and out swapped places. Now the kitchen was dark and the back garden was bright, because the light over the back door was on.
And there was still a man on the other side of the glass.
Facingin.
Staring right at her.
