My eyes were adjusted to the dark now, not that it was completely dark - a streetlight outside lit the hall faintly, and some of the light reached the wall opposite the door into the stairwell. A trapezoid of shadow appeared on the wall as a faint squeak told me the door was opening. Then the door closed and I could see the shadow of a man on the wall. I tensed. The shadow grew, and then he stepped through the doorway into the stairwell.
“Aaiiee!” With a bloodcurdling yell, I sprang toward the intruder, giving him a glancing blow to the shoulder with the flashlight and then knocking his feet out from under him with a swift kick. He fell with a thud and a yelp, and I was about to stomp on his knee and crush it when I realized there was something familiar about that yelp.
I turned on the flashlight instead, and saw that I had felled Rob.
“Hi, Meg,” he said, and rubbed the back of his head, where I’d hit him.
“Rob, what are you doing here?”
“I was following you,” he said, feeling his ribs. “I saw you walking this way, and I thought I’d see what you were up to.”
“It never occurred to you to just walk up and say, ‘Hi, Meg. What are you up to?’”
“I thought it would be more fun to surprise you,” he said, rubbing his knee. “Gee, I blew it didn’t I? I should have done the Crash of the Eagle when you attacked me. Or maybe Striking Mace.”
“If you say so.”
“Could we take that over again?” he asked. “I’ll go out in the hall and come back in again and - “
“Rob?”
“Yes?”
“Go home,” I said.
He stood up, tested his knee, winced, and nodded. “Okay,” he said.
I watched as he limped slowly off. I hoped he was exaggerating the limp. I felt bad about hurting my own brother, but not too bad. If he was going to sunk around stalking people, he’d have to learn to take care of himself.
I climbed the stairs. Quietly, though I figured anyone who had anything to hide probably heard the commotion Rob and I had made and fled long ago. I unlocked the office door and then drew back into the shadows and waited until I was sure anyone lurking inside would have gotten impatient and peeked out. And then I waited another five minutes, because I knew perfectly well patience wasn’t my long suit.
I flung the door open suddenly and flipped the light switch, figuring that the sudden illumination would temporarily blind anyone lurking inside. Of course, it wouldn’t help my vision, but I figured I’d have an edge if I was expecting it.
No armed thugs or nimble ninjas lurked inside the door. I could see George, stirring slightly, but I turned the light off before he woke up completely. Apart from him, the reception area was unoccupied.
So was the rest of the office. I could probably have figured that out in five minutes if I’d just walked around yelling “Hey, anyone here?” Or better yet, “Pizza’s here!” It took me four times that long, listening outside doors and then leaping through, doing my best imitation of what the cops do in TV shows. It occurred to me, halfway through, that this tactic probably worked better for cops with firearms than for someone armed only with a large flashlight. And that if anyone was recording my antics with a hidden camera, I’d never live it down.
But by the time I’d finished creeping and leaping my way through the floor, I was reasonably sure no one was there. Yippee. Time to begin the real business of the evening.
I balanced the black light on my bandaged left hand, wiped my embarrassingly sweaty right palm, took a better grip on it, and fumbled for the ON switch. The light was about the size of a flashlight - in fact, it did have a small flashlight built into one end. But running all along the length of it was a glass cylinder, rather like a very short fluorescent lightbulb. I’d tested it, at home, of course - at least as far as I could test it without anything ultraviolet to detect. I’d put in fresh batteries and switched it on to admire the weird purple glow. I was ready to stalk the mail cart.
But using the black light to do so proved harder than I’d thought. I’d imagined the mail cart’s path would look rather like the markings on an asphalt highway, a wide, solid line, several inches wide. Or perhaps more like the baselines on a ball field. I dredged up a childhood memory of seeing someone mark the baselines with a little cart that rolled along the infield, depositing a thick trail of white powder behind it. I presumed the mail cart company used something like that, only with powder that was colorless in daylight. And when I flicked on the black light, the trail would suddenly appear, glowing luminously. And all I’d have to do to find some key evidence was follow the trail, like Dorothy skipping down the yellow brick road.