Because you never saw the trap until you were already standing in it. The evening stretched on. Shadows lengthened across the yard, then deepened into the blue gray of early dusk. Voss paced slowly along the walkway, occasionally glancing toward the porch, occasionally murmuring something to Hutchkins that the sisters couldn't quite hear. Pierce stood near the sidewalk, arms crossed, looking like he wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
Boyd leaned against the driveway railing, phone in hand, occasionally glancing up toward the porch with an expression that hadn't softened at all. Doyle drifted closer to the porch steps at one point, close enough that Vivien could hear him murmur something low to Pierce, something that sounded almost like an apology. Neither sister moved from the top of the steps. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, exactly the way they had when they were children, waiting out a thunderstorm on the same porch, backs straight, refusing to give the men below them the satisfaction of seeing them shaken. Somewhere around 8, full dark settled over Bell Street.
Lights flickered on in windows up and down the block. And a few curtains twitched. Neighbors watching but not stepping outside the way people do when they sense trouble but don't yet understand what kind. Mrs. Coulson from two doors down stood on her own porch for a while, arms crossed, watching the cruisers with an expression Norah couldn't quite read from that distance. She and their father had been friendly once, the kind of friendly that came from 30 years of borrowed tools and shared tomatoes over a fence line.
She didn't come any closer. She just watched and after a few minutes, she went back inside, and the small lamp beside her own front door stayed lit the rest of the night, like a quiet flag raised in solidarity that nobody else noticed but Norah. It wasn't much, but Norah found herself grateful for it anyway. It was Voss who finally broke the standoff, walking back toward Hutchkins with a quiet word neither sister could hear. Hutchkins's jaw tightened, but he didn't argue.
"We're withdrawing for tonight, " Voss announced, his voice carrying across the yard. "This investigation will continue tomorrow morning. " "Agents Whitfield, I'd advise you both to remain available. We're not going anywhere, " Norah said. "This is our house.
" Voss's expression didn't change. "Then I imagine we'll see you both tomorrow. " The four officers filed back toward their vehicles, boots crunching against the gravel edge of the driveway. Hutchkins was the last to go, pausing at the bottom of the steps, staring up at Norah with an expression that had nothing professional left in it at all. "This isn't over, " he said quietly.
"Just for her. " "No, " Norah agreed. "It isn't. " The cruisers pulled away one by one, red tail lights disappearing around the corner into the dark. The unmarked sedan followed a moment later.
Voss's silhouette visible behind the wheel until it too turned and vanished. Silence settled back over Bell Street. A dog barked somewhere, then stopped. Overhead, the small fixture above the door hummed faintly. The same low sound it had made every night of Norah's childhood.