A Wonderful Life Read Online Free Page A

flickered into view.
    CNN, a station she rarely watched.
    Realizing something was wrong, her eyes darted through the rooms she’d already entered before she realized there was nothing out of place in the kitchen, the hallway or the living room. Doing a quick check of the bathroom, she acknowledged that the shower curtain was exactly the way she had left it while in a hurry that morning.  Then she walked into the bedroom.
    The comforter was slightly off. That was obvious.  She always kept it so the lines on the edge of the comforter lined up with the edge of the bed.  The right hand line was slightly off, indicating that someone, or something, had touched the comforter.
    Glancing through the bedroom, she sized up the room and realized that the closet was the only place she could not see into, indicating that if someone was in the room, that person would be in the closet.  While she hoped that this would not be the case, she also knew she didn’t get very many visitors, so she slowly walked towards the closet.
    It was one of those long closets with panel doors that stretch across one side of a room.  It opened from both sides, from the left and from the right, and it was of a chipped white color with slats that ran down the length of the doors.
    Before she could cross the room, she started to wonder if someone was watching her from behind and through the openings between the slats.  If so, she realized the person would know she was coming forward and be ready to jump out at any time.  She stopped walking immediately, knowing that each step she took brought her that much closer to what would most certainly be a terrible situation.  As long as she remained on the other side of the room, there was no fear of the person jumping out at her; the only place to get out of the closet was through the doors at opposite sides of the closet, and she would see the doors move long before a person could open a door and come chasing after her.
    But would she be able to make it out of the room before the person was able to catch up with her?  Not sure of this, she backed up a bit and glanced at the bedroom door, analyzing its distance and how quickly she might cross that distance.  It seemed like it would be a crap shoot, although she couldn’t be sure.  This was not something one thought about often.
    Still, if she didn’t check the closet, she would never know if there was someone still in the house, and that would make things even worse.  She couldn’t just go sit down and watch Jeopardy while someone might be hiding in her closet.
    “Yeah, Alex, I’ll take Countries of Europe for $200, and I’m sure that guy in the closet won’t jump out and just attack me.”  No, that wouldn’t work.
    Plus, she couldn’t just ignore the closet and then go to bed.  If she was to fall asleep without knowing, that…thing, to put it kindly…would come out and do whatever things like that do when one is unsuspecting and unable to respond.  No, that would be even worse.
    She had to open the closet door, and she had to do it while she knew the closet would be the only place the person might be.  Once she left the bedroom, she gave up the advantage of knowing, and that was even worse than just suspecting.
    So, she walked forward again, although this time she was not sure which side of the closet to check.  If she checked the left side, the side where she kept her dresses and shirts, the person would have more room to maneuver, and she would be quite helpless once surprised.  If she checked the right side, there were her shelves of shoes and pants for the person to get through, so the person might actually be stuck trying to maneuver through the mess as she got her two extra seconds of safety.  But there was also the possibility that the intruder would use her pants to wrap around her as she opened the door and slow her escape while any one of her shoes could be used as a weapon against her.  The more she thought about it, the more