Cogent

ONE

4:07 p.m.

The soft hiss of the kettle was heard throughout the empty house. Everything was still and silent, until that soft burst of steam fogged up the dials on the stovetop with a sound barely louder than a whisper. It grew and grew until the hiss was a whistle and the house was no longer still.

Carter Dallas entered the house. He knocked his shoes against the rug, raindrops flinging from the ends of his brown leather oxfords. "Lenny!" he called, stepping further into the foyer and dropping an umbrella into a copper bucket under the coatrack. He braced himself against the door, pushing it closed with one shoulder. The blue and red stained glass vibrated as the door shut, an automatic lock clicking into place. "Lenny!" There was no answer, other than the whistle of the teakettle still steaming vehemently in the kitchen.

The house was too quiet. Lenny always listened to an oldies music station on rainy Sundays. Carter ventured forward in spite of the uncomfortable silence. "Lenny, it's me!" he called out a third time as he stepped into the dining room. The rubber soles of his oxfords left tiny squares of watery mud on the polished wood floors.

He stood in the dining room for a moment, his thick, dark eyebrows knit together in slight confusion. The teakettle continued to whistle, steam rising from the spout and into the empty air. "God, Lenny," he mumbled, stomping into the kitchen. He quickly placed the kettle on a back burner, twisting the dial until the little red light switched off. "If there's anyone who could burn water, it'd be you." He mumbled, shaking his head.

The unnatural quiet gave the house an air of unfamiliarity. He'd been there ten thousand times before, but Lenny's place had never felt so empty. Slowly, he turned around, suddenly confused by the clean surfaces surrounding him. It was never this quiet, he thought, and never this clean.

The kitchen counters were spotless. Even the toaster had been put away. The cabinets had been wiped clean with some sort of chemical that left streaks on the painted white surfaces. The hardwood floors had been recently mopped and waxed, giving them a shine they hadn't seen since their installment when the house was built by Lenny's grandfather.

Carter's eyes drifted to the dining room with its oak table and six matching chairs. Each one had been washed and placed just under the edge of the polished table. The glass doors of the china cabinet in the corner of the room had been cleaned, each shelf dusted. Every tea pot and turkey server had been scrubbed and put back, no longer stacked like they were the last time he was here. That was a about a week ago, he realized. Too long.

Growing more concerned, Carter moved through the rest of the house. He was surprised to discover each room in the same cleanly order, not a speck of dust or even a curly blond hair resting on anything. It was as if Lenny had removed every trace of herself from the house, other than the china still in the cabinet in the dining room. As he passed the hallway across from the downstairs bathroom, he noticed a small square-shaped patch of wall where a framed photo of Lenny's parents used to hang. He brushed his hand over the faded paint just beyond the boundary of the frame and swallowed hard.

Moving through the hallway toward the back door, Carter felt his pulse begin to speed up. Worry was turning to panic.

He kept his eyes on the back door, hastily convincing himself that she would be beyond it, taking forgotten clothes off the line in a frenzy, soaking wet and feeling foolish. But as he came closer he saw, through the tall, narrow window that comprised most of the door, that Lenny was not out there. A high wooden fence enclosed a small grassy yard. If she was out there, he would have seen her from where he stood.

"Lenny!" he called, wheeling around to charge back through the house. He stopped when he felt something crunch beneath the toe of his shoe. Moving back, he glanced down and saw a small clown figurine. It was made of plaster and had broken into a dozen pieces under his weight. The head had rolled away from him, stopping in front of the basement door. A pair of glassy black eyes stared up at him, blood-red tears painted onto its cheeks.