A silhouette moved there. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A man crossing from the bathroom toward the kitchen, or from the kitchen toward the back door, it did not matter. What mattered was the shape of him, and the fact of him, and the way Sondra's body blocked the doorway as if she could still choose what Reggie was allowed to see.
Scout barked once, sharp.
"Who's inside?" Reggie asked.
Sondra's face went to panic so cleanly it almost looked like honesty.
"Reggie—"
"Who."
The silhouette stopped. Then it stepped into the edge of the light enough for a face: dark skin, short beard, maybe Reggie's age or a little younger, taller by half a head, shoulders that filled a plain black pullover. He held a glass of water like a prop someone had given him in a play he did not want to be in.
"I can go," the man said.
Sondra closed her eyes for half a second. When she opened them they were wet and furious and afraid all at once.
"Don't," she said, and Reggie could not tell which of them she meant.
Scout barked again and strained forward. Reggie held the leash. He did not step inside yet. The threshold felt like a line drawn in wet cement.
"You going to introduce us," Reggie said, "or you want me to guess?"
Sondra's voice cracked. "His name is Franklin. Franklin Boyd."
Franklin nodded once, as if the name itself were an apology. "I work over at the logistics center on Route Nine. We—Sondra and I—we know each other from the adult education building. I took a class last year."
"And then you started coming to my house," Reggie said.
Franklin did not sneer. He did not puff up. He looked like a man who had known this evening would arrive and had hoped it would arrive later. "Yes."
Sondra flinched as if the word had hit her.