Chapter 6: Key in the dark
The cool night air felt like a punishment. Alice stood on the sidewalk across the street, staring at the neat, two-story house with its tidy garden and warm glow from the living room window. Heath's house. The home he shared with Chloe.
Her heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. This is insane. I shouldn't be here.
But she was. She'd gotten the text an hour ago, after her own shift ended. Frank, in his perpetual state of mischievous gossip, had casually mentioned that Chloe was visiting her mother upstate overnight. "Heath's a free man tonight," he'd said with a wink, unaware of the nuclear bomb he'd just dropped in Alice's lap.
She'd stared at the message, her fingers trembling. Then, without thinking, she'd gotten in her car and driven. She hadn't texted Heath. She hadn't called. She just drove, following the route she'd overheard him mention once when talking about his commute.
Now, here she was. An intruder. A ghost at the window of his real life.
The front door was painted a cheerful blue. There was a bike leaned against the porch railing—Chloe's, probably. Everything was so normal. So settled. It screamed of a life built together, of shared days and quiet nights.
Alice's breath caught. She should turn around. Drive home. Forget this reckless, desperate idea.
But then she remembered the wine cellar. His whispered promise. "When it happens, it won't be a stolen moment in a kitchen. It'll be... ours. Proper." This was proper. This was his space, without her shadow. This was a territory she could invade, claim, for just one night.
Before her courage evaporated, she crossed the street. Her steps were silent on the paved path. She didn't go to the front door. She remembered him saying the back door lock was finicky, that he sometimes left the key under a pot by the patio.
The backyard was small, shrouded in darkness. She found the pot, a heavy ceramic one holding a dormant rose bush. Her hand slid beneath it, fingers searching in the cold dirt. There. A cold, metallic key.
Her pulse roared in her ears. This is a line. A line you can't cross back over.
She inserted the key into the back door lock. It turned with a smooth click. The door swung open into a dark kitchen.
She stepped inside, the familiar scent of him hitting her immediately—his soap, the faint trace of the bistro's spices on his clothes. But mixed with it was other smells: a floral candle, the aroma of a recent meal, the clean, generic scent of a lived-in home. Her smells.
Alice stood in the dark kitchen, her eyes adjusting. She could see the living room through an archway, lit by the soft glow of a single lamp. And there he was.
Heath was sitting on the sofa, his back to her. He was still in his work clothes—dark trousers, a simple grey t-shirt. He had a glass of something in his hand, and he was staring at the blank television screen, his posture slumped, thoughtful. Alone.
