At first, I thought it was squirrels in the roof. We’ve had that problem before. But this was different. It wasn’t the frantic scurrying of small animals. It was slower and more deliberate, a dragging, scratching noise that seemed to come from directly above the kitchen.
Above the kitchen was the attic.
The sound came at roughly the same time each evening, just after dusk. It would last a few minutes, then stop. The first night, I shrugged it off. By the third night, I found myself standing still in the kitchen, listening carefully, my old Navy instincts stirring awake.
I went to the drawer where Helen kept her keys. She had keys to everything: the shed, the basement, the filing cabinet, even cars we had sold years ago and never bothered to discard the keys for.
I took the ring upstairs and stood before the attic door. One by one, I tried every key. None of them fit.
