Page 19 of Perdition

And he was locked out.

His chest burning with rage, he hurried around the house to the back door, ignoring the churning in his belly. Why wouldn’t the key code work?

There was only one explanation, but he refused to believe that his wife would change the code and not tell him.

Because that would mean things were a lot worse than he thought.

Marriage in trouble….

Fuck.

He reached the back door and pulled out his cell. Maybe she had texted him the new code and he’d just missed it.

Nothing.

There was nothing from Em, not even a response to his text from earlier.

Sucking in a breath, he stared at the lock on the back door, knowing that if he tried inputting the same code, it would send an alarm to the police station. The last fucking thing he needed was to deal with today was the PD.

Sick to his stomach, he stared through the window beside the door, trying to make out any movement.

He knocked on the door, pausing between sets of raps to listen for her approach. Nothing. He knocked again.

Nothing.

Perhaps she was in one of her long bath soaks, and hadn’t gotten the text about him coming home, or she was mad at him about something, and making him sweat, or she was sleeping and couldn’t hear the beeping at the door or him knocking.

Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, or a cry for attention, or a glitch in the Matrix.

Right…and the key code changed itself, fool!

“Emily!” he yelled, banging his fist against the door, not giving a fuck if the neighbors heard. “Let me in! What the fuck is going on?”

Nothing but silence met his demands.

He pounded on the door again, his fist aching with each blow.

“Emily, let me the fuck in!”

Again, silence met his demands.

Finally, he got an idea.

He cursed.

The garage.

He had the fob for the garage door opener on the keys in his pocket.

Fuck! Why hadn’t he thought of that before; he could just open the garage and go into the house through the interior garage door. She never locked that, no matter how many times he’d told her to. She always said the closed garage door was secure enough, and she hated having to unlock the door every time she needed to do laundry, since the washer and dryer were in there.

At the front of the house, he hit the button on the fob, and the garage door began to ascend. Immediately he noticed only one set of tires, which meant Em’s car wasn’t there.

Where was she?

He hadn’t gotten notification from the system that she’d rearmed it after leaving, which meant she had to be there.

Unless she forgot to arm it before leaving, which wasn’t like his security conscious wife. Or the system glitched and hadn’t sent him a notification.