We went back to watching scary TV shows at night. Until Mitch had to go back out to sea, that was. The knowledge that there was nothing upstairs gave me strength. My bravery at rising to the occasion to inspect the attic gave me even more respect for myself. So what did that leave? A bit of boredom. On one lonely and sleepless night, I decided to read all of the notebooks again. As I leafed through all of the notebooks, I gained more respect for James. Just like me, he’d been alone. I theorized that he collected weapons and observations to protect himself from perceived threats – real or imagined.
I was about to go to sleep when I saw the last notebook. It was a skinny one that was inside of a larger one. I didn’t know how I’d missed that one before.
“2449 Corsair Drive,” I muttered.
My brow furrowed as I realized the location of the address – it was the house of Dwight and Janet, the very place where I’d collected Tupperware housewares from only a couple of days past. I closed the notebook and wondered if I should read it. Janet and Dwight were nice to me and Mitch. They were the first neighbors that came to introduce themselves. They came over frequently to check on us. I deemed that they deserved the right to “start fresh” with us. With that in mind, I closed the notebook and put it back in the box.
Insomnia and curiosity brought me back to it only fifteen minutes later.
The notebook was far more detailed that the others had been. I figured that the reason was the James was right across the street from the house in question. He didn’t have anything ill to say about Janet. He was much less charitable to Dwight, though.
“October 14, 2005 – he went through my trash again.”
That made me blink a few times. I thought about our trash cans; they were off to the left side of our house, near the back. How closely did James observe Dwight?
“October 17, 2006 – caught him looking through 2447’s windows late into the night.”
That made me swallow. Nervously, I stood up and went to the window where I could observe my neighbor from across the street. It was dark out. The lights were on. Their cars were there. They looked normal. After pacing my bedroom for a while, I went back to the notebook.
“November 30, 2006 – Dwight and the boyfriend of 2447 get into a loud argument.”
I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. I’d found a creep alright – but it wasn’t my house’s previous owner – it was the friendly neighbor across the street.
