"Positions," Brooke whispered, delighted.
Everyone moved at once. Margaret dimmed the kitchen. Mason killed the lamps in the living room. Natalie grabbed the lighter for the candles, then decided the cake should remain unlit until Ethan stepped farther inside. Claire stood near the center of the room beside the dining table, heart beating faster with sudden anticipation. In the darkness she could hear Thomas trying not to cough.
Outside, Ethan pulled into the driveway and swore softly when he saw no car except his own reflected in the garage windows.
Vanessa looked toward the dark house. "See? Empty."
Claire's car was parked inside the garage, hidden from view. Margaret and Thomas had parked around the corner. The others had done the same, following Claire's instructions so Ethan would suspect nothing.
Ethan turned off the engine. For the first time that night, something like instinct warned him to leave.
He ignored it.
Ethan got out and walked around the car to Vanessa's side. The night had turned colder than either of them expected, and a dry wind pushed loose leaves along the curb. Vanessa slipped her hand through his arm as they crossed the driveway. She looked at the neat white trim, the dark upstairs windows, the wreath Claire had hung on the front door two weeks earlier, and smiled as if she were being admitted into a place that had previously existed only in stories.
"So this is the famous house," she said. Ethan took his keys from his pocket. "Don't make it weird." "I'm not making anything weird. You're the one sneaking me in like we're seventeen."
He gave her a look that was meant to be playful and did not quite become one. The porch light illuminated the left side of his face while the rest remained shadowed. For a second Vanessa thought he looked older than thirty-three. Then he unlocked the door.
Inside, the entry hall was dark. Claire had left the porch light on because she wanted him to see the keyhole, but every lamp beyond the doorway had been switched off. Ethan stepped inside first and listened. The house gave him only silence.
Vanessa entered behind him, the thin heels of her shoes tapping lightly against the hardwood. At twenty-eight, she looked striking even in the dim entryway, with fair skin, long platinum-blonde hair arranged in loose waves, bold evening makeup, and a tight red cocktail dress beneath her coat. She shrugged out of the coat and draped it over one arm while the red fabric caught even the little light coming from the open door.
"Relax, baby," she murmured, leaning closer. "You said your wife's out tonight." Five yards away in the dark living room, Claire heard every word.
Her first reaction was confusion so complete that it had no emotion attached to it. The voice was female. Young. Familiar only in the vague way a voice can sound familiar when it belongs to the person you have imagined without admitting you were imagining anyone. Claire stood with one hand resting against the back of a dining chair and stared toward the black rectangle of the hallway.
Margaret's face turned toward her, though Claire could see only the pale shape of it. Natalie stopped breathing loudly enough that Claire heard the silence where the sound had been. Mason shifted one foot but did not move.
Ethan answered from the hall, too low and too casual. "She is supposed to be." Supposed to be.
The phrase entered Claire's mind differently from everything around it. It did not sound like a mistake. It sounded like planning.
Vanessa laughed softly. "Then stop looking like somebody's going to jump out at you." Ethan closed the front door. Darkness swallowed the last spill of porch light, leaving the hall almost completely black.