Relentless

the patio, the swimming pool, and the backyard. No sign of Waxx.
    That eerie stillness had befallen the world again. The water in the pool lay as smooth as a sheet of glass.
    While I had been reading, gunmetal clouds had armored the sky. They did not billow, neither did they churn, but looked as flat and motionless as a coat of paint.
    Because we lived in the safest neighborhood of a low-crime community, we were in the habit of leaving our most-used doors unlocked during the day. That would change.
    Bewildered by Waxx’s intrusion, I closed the French door and engaged the deadbolt.
    Abruptly, I realized that the critic might have done more than pass through the house. If he had left by the family room, he could have entered elsewhere—and could have done some kind of damage.
    Engaged in strange science, Milo was upstairs in his bedroom with Lassie.
    In her second-floor studio, Penny painted the wide-eyed, sharp-beaked owl that hunted the band of heroic mice in her current book.
    Although the dog had not barked and though no one had cried outin pain or terror, my mind insisted on the most unlikely scenario, on bludgeoned heads and cut throats. Our modern world is, after all, full of flamboyant violence; as often as not, the evening news is as disturbing as any slasher film.
    I climbed the back stairs two at a time.

   Milo’s bedroom door stood open, and he sat at his desk, alive and beguiled by electronic gizmos that meant less to me than would ancient tablets of stone carved with runes.
    On the desk, watching her master at work, sat Lassie. She looked up as I entered, but Milo did not.
    “Did you see him?” I asked.
    Milo, who can multitask better than a Cray supercomputer, stayed focused on the gizmos but said, “See who?”
    “The man … a guy wearing a red bow tie. Did he come in here?”
    “You mean the man with three eyes and four nostrils?” he asked, revealing that perhaps he had been more aware of my spy game at the restaurant than I had realized.
    “Yes, him,” I confirmed. “Did he come in here?”
    “Nope. We would have freaked if he did.”
    “Shout if you see him. I’ll be right back.”
    The door to Penny’s studio was closed. I flung it open, rushed inside, and found her at the easel.
    So dimensional was the image of the villain owl that it seemed to be flying at me from out of the canvas, beak wide to rend and eyes hot for blood.
    Certain that she knew the cause of my breathless entrance, Penny spoke before I could say a word: “Did the coffeemaker assault you or have you used the dishwasher again and flooded the kitchen?”
    “Big problem,” I said. “Milo. Come quick.”
    She put down her brush and hurried after me. When she saw Milo tinkering in peace and Lassie without hackles raised, Penny sighed with relief and said to me, “The punch line better be hilarious.”
    “Stay here with him. Brace the door with that chair when I leave.”
    “What? Why?”
    “If someone asks you to open the door, even if it sounds like me, don’t open it.”
    “Cubby—”
    “Ask something only I would know—like where we went on our first date. He probably can’t imitate my voice—I mean, he’s not a comic-book supercriminal, for God’s sake—but you never know.”
    “He who? What’s wrong with you?”
    “There was an intruder. I think he’s gone, but I’m not sure.”
    Her eyes widened as might those of a mouse in the sudden shadow of a swooping owl. “Call 911.”
    “He’s not that kind of intruder.”
    “There isn’t any
other
kind.”
    “Besides, I might have imagined him.”
    “Did you see him or not?”
    “I saw something.”
    “Then it’s 911.”
    “I’m a public figure. The media will follow the cops, it’ll be a publicity circus.”
    “Better than you dead.”
    “I’ll be okay. Use the chair as a brace.”
    “Cubby—”
    Stepping into the shorter of the two upstairs hallways, I pulled the door shut. I waited until I heard the headrail of the straight-backed chair knock against the knob as she jammed it into place.
    Dependable Penny.
    Reason argued that a renowned critic and textbook author like Shearman Waxx was not likely to be a psychopath. Eccentric, yes, and perhaps even weird. But not homicidal. Reason, in its true premodern meaning, had served me well for many years.
    Nevertheless, from a hall table, I seized a tall, heavy vase with a fat bottom and a narrow neck. Flat-footed athlete that I am, I held it as I would have held a tennis