Chapter 5
ALICE AND I traipsed through someone’s yard to the back of the Tander residence. The girl had broken my isolation, and annoyance at the disturbance tried to lash me into anger. Instead, I studied her home.
The house was snug and tight, two floors, with a steep solar-shingle roof over battered red brick walls. Glittering suncatchers in the upper windows fractured sunlight into rainbow sprays. Irregular branches sprouting off the round shrubs around the back begged for trimming, but someone had swept the driveway. Thorny roses engulfed a trellis beside the huge, curtain-blocked window overseeing the backyard. If Absolute put eyes in the roses, it could see inside.
Alice touched the handle of the doorwall. Her breath quickened. Her shoulders hunched inward. Her fingers lingered o
