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it?”
    “White, six sugars.”
    “Very healthy.” I poured the hot water over teabags in the cups, turned to face her as I waited for the tea to brew. “You can leave the door open if you like…if it makes you feel more comfortable.”
    She kicked the door shut. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
    “How do you know?”
    “I can tell. I’m a good judge of character.”
    She took off her heavy coat and hung it over the back of a kitchen chair. She had on a black (surprise, surprise) T-shirt that declared the name of a band I’d never heard of— Gladiatorial Snot . The shirt was at least two sizes too big for her frame, and underneath it she had on a white long-sleeved sweater.
    “Nice shirt,” I said, then turned to pull the teabags out of the cups. I added milk to mine, milk and the requisite six sugars to hers, and then handed her the drink.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Adam,” I said. “I just moved in.”
    “I’m Pru,” she said.
    “Short for Prudence?”
    “Short for mind your own fucking business,” she snapped, but a smile came with it to let me know that she was at least half kidding.
    “My, you’re a real charmer,” I said. “The youth of today: so damned rude.”
    “You invited me in.” She sipped her tea, those dark-rimmed eyes peering at me over the cup.
    Pru looked to be about seventeen or eighteen. She might have been younger; I couldn’t tell, and she was one of those semi-goth kids whose age was tough to estimate. I’d seen them everywhere, this type: her type, always wearing black, with long dyed black hair, and listening to death metal on their iPod headphones. She wasn’t homeless, as I’d first thought; she just liked to look as if she was.
    “You’re out late. Aren’t your folks worried?”
    “Don’t be silly. I’m nineteen. I live in a flat a couple of miles away, share it with a few friends.”
    “By flat, do you mean squat?”
    “Whatever.” She took another drink of her tea. “This is nice.”
    I liked her; she was pretty cool, and seemed to take no shit. I wished I’d been like that at her age.
    “So why were you out there, looking at that house?”
    She put down her cup on the table, pulled out a chair and sat down.
    “Please, make yourself at home,” I said.
    She gave a little chuckle at that one. “Do you know who used to live in that house? The empty one next door?”
    I sat down opposite her, wrapping my hands around my mug. “I just found out today that a murderer used to live on my street. So let me guess. A murderer?” I couldn’t help being flippant. The seriousness of the subject matter made me want to try and keep it at bay using cheap humor.
    “That’s right,” she said. “Katherine Moffat. She killed twelve kids that they know of, and is thought to have killed at least ten more and buried their remains in the area.”
    Pru’s type, they always seemed to idolize, or even deify, serial killers. I bet she had one of those T-shirts with “Charlie Don’t Surf” written underneath Charles Manson’s grinning face.
    “Ah…you’re one of those.”
    She looked questioningly at me, little wrinkles furrowing her brow. They were cute. “What do you mean, ‘one of those’?”
    “A death groupie. The black clothes, black hair, white face…I bet you read extreme horror stories and write bad poetry, too, or cute little songs, about death and stuff.”
    “Okay, I’m gone.” She stood up, pushed back the chair, and stalked toward the door. As she opened it, she turned to me, and her face had gone red beneath the sun-starved pallor. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re a bit of a prick.”
    “Thanks,” I said, saluting her with my mug of tea. “Please, stop by anytime. I’m always happy to help.”
    She slammed the door on her way out. I was left there staring at my tea.
    About a minute later the door opened again and she was standing there, looking sheepish, her gaze finding me through her ragged black fringe.