Shelter Read Online Free PDF Page A

cognac on the end table.
    Tim’s explanation should make sense, but it doesn’t. Nothing in this room makes sense. The volume of chaos is too much for one person, especially a man pushing sixty.
    â€œDoes it always get this crazy?” Lentz asks.
    â€œNever,” Kyung says, and this is the part that’s beginning to worry him. He knows his father is capable of hitting a woman. And taking a bat or a broom to his mother’s antiques, he can imagine this too. But what bothers Kyung is that his father isn’t the type of person to destroy his own things. The painting of Nauset Beach on Cape Cod—the one torn out of its frame and lying on the floor—it was one of Jin’s most prized possessions. He shakes his head, unable to sort through the mismatch between what he knows and what he sees.
    â€œI don’t think my father could have done all this,” he says quietly. “I think, maybe—they were robbed.”
    Connie is the first to pick up on the panic in Kyung’s voice, the first to understand they might not be alone. He lifts the back of his shirt and removes a gun from his waistband while Tim quickly does the same. For a moment, Lentz seems as startled as Kyung is to realize they’ve been wearing holsters under their clothes, but he follows their lead and draws his weapon. Connie puts a finger to his mouth and points three times—at the staircase, the hallway, and the front door. Suddenly, Kyung feels someone grabbing his shirt and pushing him toward the entryway against his will. With one quick shove, he lands against the porch rail, flung out into the daylight like a drunk at a bar. He turns to see Tim running up the stairs as the front door clicks shut.
    He wonders if he’s supposed to do something—use the radio in Lentz’s car to call for backup, or ask the neighbors to call 911. His only point of reference is movies, bad ones that frighten him nonetheless. He expects to hear gunfire or see a chase across the lawn, but minutes pass, and nothing happens. The neighborhood is the same rich kind of quiet it always is, punctuated by birdsong and little else. A woman jogs by with two children in a running stroller, the littler of whom offers Kyung a wave that he doesn’t return. Occasionally, a car drives by at a respectful, residential speed. The longer nothing happens, the more he begins to accept the possibility that everything is fine, or will be soon enough. The people responsible for the robbery are probably long gone by now, and his father probably went to the police station to report what they’d lost. He’s comforted by this theory, the safety of it, even though it doesn’t begin to explain what happened to his mother.
    Kyung circles the porch, looking into windows that offer no view of the rooms inside. He should have known something was wrong when he saw the drapes. Mae’s only hobby is making the house look nice. Her philosophy is to let the neighbors see. All her work over the years—the antiques and art and books arranged just so—he can’t believe how much of it has been destroyed. Something about the damage almost seems personal, as if the people who robbed them knew exactly what his mother valued most.
    As he walks around to the front of the house, the door opens and Tim appears with Marina, his parents’ housekeeper. She’s the last person he expected to see, wrapped from head to toe in a bedsheet, clutching the ends together with her fists. The flowery green print is thin, thin enough to notice that she’s naked underneath. Kyung understands what this means. Two naked women, both brutalized. Marina’s left eye is swollen shut and the bridge of her nose is as thick as a pipe. Her long brown hair is ratty, electrified. He’s about to say something to her—what, he doesn’t know—but Tim locks his jaw and shakes his head violently. Not now. Marina passes Kyung without saying a