Closet: A Todd Mills Mystery - R. D. Zimmerman - Mass Market Paperback

When he saw through the windshield that the house lights were on, his skin prickled and he started trembling in nervous anticipation. This was the night, he thought, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that for a moment he wondered if it would snap off. From the darkness of his car he watched the figure move from one room to another, and he knew that at last he would have Michael to himself. Tonight was finally the night; there would be no interruption. He drove his light gray car around the block and returned a second time, slowing slightly but again not stopping. Not there, not in front of the large stucco duplex. This was Kenwood, the fanciest neighborhood in Minneapolis. The largest homes were here, huge old things scattered around Lake of the Isles, which lay just two blocks west. If he stopped he might be seen; a gossipy neighbor in this exclusive, quiet, and protective area might be watching. So he kept moving, his eyes trained on the building. There were just a couple of lights on downstairs, while the upper apartment was entirely black. Tonight was indeed the night he'd been waiting for. He parked around the corner, carefully pulling his car into a pool of darkness. He took a deep breath, felt his heart churning wildly, then released the steering wheel from his death grip and looked at his hands. Shit, he thought, examining his palms, noting the perspiration glistening even in this stingy light. This would be the first time, the first one. Why shouldn't he be nervous as hell? Not long ago he'd realized he had no other choice, that this was the next step in his life, as inevitable as the next breath and the one after that. But he still hadn't believed he was really going to go through with it. Not until now. There was no other step, no shirking the need, and he felt a rush of excitement meld with a rich sense of fear. He zipped up his brown leather coat, pulled on a pair of gloves as well as a dark wool cap, and studied the street. There were no joggers coming to or from the lake, no one huffing and puffing through this mid-October air. No one walking a dog. Which was all as it should be, not a soul to see him. He climbed out of the car, gently pressing the door shut, and then hurried to the sidewalk, where he moved along, his head hung. At the alley he took a left. And then stopped. Quickly, he pressed himself against a mass of tall lilacs, their spindly, leafless branches spearing his side. Down by the third garage a gray-haired woman bundled up in a coat was dragging a green bin to the edge of the alley. She was putting out her recycling, he realized. She flipped back the lid, disappeared for a moment, and returned with a grocery sack of glass, which she noisily shoved into the container. She next rolled her large brown garbage container to the edge of the alley, caught her breath, and then was gone. He heard the sound of a back door opening and closing. Still he did not move, not until the woman flicked off the floodlight perched under the eaves of her garage. When it was dark and all was quiet again, he pressed on. As he neared the woman's garage and the recycling bin, though, he did slow, checking the lights to be sure there were no motion detectors. He scurried on, realizing that, Jesus Christ, he'd never thought he'd be so . . . so excited. He came around the back of Michael's blueZimmerman, R. D. is the author of 'Closet: A Todd Mills Mystery - R. D. Zimmerman - Mass Market Paperback' with ISBN 9780440218692 and ISBN 0440218691.