Monster in Miniature by Margaret Grace

something got messed up.”
    Had I really made my son’s life that miserable? I did remember warning Richard that the desk was mainly for his parents’ use, since he had a perfectly good setup in his own room, and that if he did use the desk, he had to leave everything in it and on it the way he’d found it. No wonder he’d never touched it and passed a warning on to his daughter.
    On the other hand, I’d invited Maddie to use the desk, with no restrictions. In fact, I hoped she would since she would then be nearby for chatting while I cooked or ironed. The desk issue was not the only one where I knew I was much more lenient with my granddaughter than I had been with my son.
    I dropped the envelope into the wastebasket, though it wasn’t damaged in any way, and felt a sudden chill. What if a stranger had been in my home? I stood stock-still and listened for a noise, but heard nothing other than the ticking of my living room clock and the humming noise from my refrigerator.
    Thunk. Thunk.
    I jumped. What a time for ice cubes to drop into the container on the freezer door.
    I took out my cell phone and held it like a gun. I walked from room to room.
    Nothing seemed disturbed in the crafts room, but how would I be able to tell? My crafts supplies and projects were organized in their own way, but I would never remember if I’d left a particular strand of polka-dot ribbon hanging from its slot in the multitiered ribbon holder. At any given time, I might lift the lids of several supply boxes, browsing among picture frames, mirrors, and baskets of different sizes, looking for an extra touch to a room box. More often than not, I’d leave the lids open so I’d know which of the identical blue plastic containers I’d already gone through.
    It was hopeless to track whether anyone had been in my crafts room other than the wonderful women who treated it as their own. My crafters group had been here last night. Could one of them have needed a piece of paper and helped herself to my desk drawer? I doubted it.
    I moved on to my bedroom, which seemed to be as I’d left it, as was the room Maddie used when she visited.
    Was I imagining things? Had the envelope floated from the top of the desk when a breeze lifted it? I often left windows open. Had I written a quick note at my desk this morning and forgotten? I did leave in a hurry, and things had been slightly less than normal around here for the last couple of days.
    Should I call Skip? And tell him what? That I’d found an envelope on the floor by the wastebasket and a drawer that wasn’t closed tightly?
    Put that way, it sounded silly.
    I made myself the cup of tea I’d come in for in the first place and sat in my living room, facing away from the desk.
     
     
    Half asleep on my soft living room chair, I decided I’d been thinking too much of Macbeth and his witches, and perhaps now the ghost of Banquo had also invaded my mind and my home. A worse suggestion came and went in a flash—that Ken was sending me a message: don’t mess with my stuff.

Chapter 6

    I woke up to loud footsteps entering my house from the garage. Before I was fully conscious, I grabbed the cell phone from the table next to me and tried to remember the emergency number. I was sure the steps belonged to the same intruder who’d gone through my desk. Then I remembered—I had no evidence that there had been an intruder.
    I couldn’t recall a time when I’d entertained so many strange fantasies and half dreams. Late-night visitors were taking their toll, especially those connected to homicide. I needed to get more sleep.
    The very real footsteps got louder.
    “Grandma, we got worried,” Maddie said, tramping in with her heavy athletic shoes, which were nothing like the flimsy white sneakers I’d worn to gym class in the Bronx. Not content with simple white laces, both Taylor and Maddie owned shoes with colorful Velcro tabs, blinking red lights, and shiny wheels that surprised me every time Maddie