The key didn’t turn.
I tried it again with more pressure, the way you do when you suspect the problem is technique rather than fact, when the alternative explanation is one you are not quite ready to accept. The metal sat in the lock and did nothing. The door did not move. I stood on my own porch in the early evening with my travel bag at my feet and the particular stillness of someone whose brain is running two tracks simultaneously, one still operating on the assumption that there is a simple explanation, the other already knowing there isn’t.
My first thought was that Mike had changed the locks and forgotten to tell me. My second thought arrived half a second later, sharper and more accurate: he hadn’t forgotten anything.
I stepped back from the door and called him.
