One Door From Heaven

Godfrey, Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca, Goldie Hawn in Foul Play, but she shared no darker experiences than those of Mildred Pierce. Her secondhand lives were romantic, even if sometimes tragic, and you didn't have to worry that she would ever be in the grip of a Bette Davis psychosis per Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? or Glenn Close per Fatal Attraction.
        Micky's sense of smell seemed heightened by her meditative stillness and her defensive blindness. She detected the faint astringent scent of strange soap. A crisp aftershave.
        He stirred, betrayed once more by the protesting floorboards. Even over the thump of her bass-drum heart, Micky could tell that he was moving away from her.
        Through a fringe of eyelashes, she sought him, saw him. He passed the low buffet divider that separated the living room from the kitchen.
        One small lamp, the three-way bulb set at the lowest wattage, didn't reject the shadows in the living loom, but romanced than, and in the kitchen, only the small light under the range hood slaved off the full embrace of darkness.
        Even seen from behind, and then glimpsed only briefly in profile as he turned in the kitchen gloom to approach the back door, he could be mistaken for no one else. Uninvited, Preston Maddoc had paid a visit.
        Micky had left the back door ajar for Leilani if she came. Now Maddoc left it standing wide open when he departed.
        Warily she got off the sofa and approached the kitchen. She half expected to find him waiting beyond the threshold, facing inside, amused to have caught her faking sleep.
        He wasn't there.
        She dared to step outside. No one lurked in the backyard. Maddoc had gone home.
        Retreating into the kitchen, she shut out the night. Engaged the dead-bolt lock.
        Fear drained away, leaving a feeling of violation. Before she could work up a proper sense of outrage, however, she thought of Geneva, and fear flooded back.
        She had no idea how long Maddoc was in the house. He might have gone elsewhere before entering the living room to watch her sleep.
        Micky hurried out of the kitchen, into the short hall. As she passed her own room, she noticed light bleeding under the door. She was certain that she hadn't left a lamp on.
        End of the hall. Last door. Standing ajar.
        The luminous numerals and the lighted tuning bands on the clock radio provided the only relief from a clutching darkness that seemed jagged with menace. When Micky reached the bed, this ghostly radiance revealed only the one thing that she wanted to see: Aunt Gen's face against a pillow, eyes shut, peaceful in sleep.
        Micky held one trembling hand before Geneva's face and felt the gentle breath against her palm.
        A knot pulled loose in her breast, freeing her bound breath.
        In the hall once more, she soundlessly drew Geneva's door shut and went directly to her own room.
        Scattered across the bedspread were her purse and everything it had contained. Her wallet had been emptied, though no money had been stolen; the currency lay discarded with her social-security card, her driver's license, lipstick, compact, comb, car keys…
        The closet was open. The dresser had been searched, as well, and the contents of each drawer had been left in disarray.
        On the floor lay her prison-discharge papers. She'd left them in the nightstand, under the Bible that Aunt Gen had provided.
        Regardless of the initial purpose of Maddoc's visit, he'd taken brazen advantage of the situation when he found the kitchen door ajar and Micky asleep on the sofa. From what she'd learned at the library, she knew that he was a calculating man rather than a reckless one, so she attributed his shameless prowling not to impetuosity, but to arrogance.
        Evidently he knew more about her relationship with Leilani than she'd thought he did, perhaps more than Leilani realized, too. The contrived welcome with the plate of cookies either had not fooled him or had sharpened his suspicion.
        Now he'd learned enough about Micky's recent past and about her weakness to make her uneasy.
        She wondered what he might have done if she'd awakened and found him in her room.
        The Bible lay open on the nightstand, in the lamplight. Maddoc had used the felt-tip pen from her purse to circle a passage. Joel, chapter 1, verse 5: Awake, ye drunkards, and weep.
        She