The Suicide Club by Gayle Wilson

was the new field house, of course, which brought in people who hadn’t darkened the door of the school as long as their kids had been in attendance.
    As usual, most of her tenth grade parents showed up and almost half of the upper class parents as well. Since many were accompanied by their children, she’d found herself thinking about the kinds of homes the kids Nolan was accusing of arson came from. Homes very much like the one where she’d grown up—loving, religious, with intact families. Because of that, she was still having a hard time reconciling the crime with the so-called criminals.
    She inserted the key into the lock on her front door and turned it. As the door swung open, the interior of the house appeared totally dark. She would have sworn she’d left the kitchen light burning, but in her hurry to get back to the school, she must have forgotten.
    The porch light illuminated almost half of the foyer. She stepped inside, setting her purse beside her tote bag on the hall table. She reached for the switch, but her hand hesitated halfway there. The familiar scent of home had been replaced by something strange. Chemical. Unpleasant.
    She breathed through her nostrils, attempting to identify the smell. Something she should recognize, but, perhaps due to its unexpectedness in this environment, didn’t.
    Finally she flicked the switch upward, her eyes narrowing against the resulting influx of light. The hall appeared exactly as she’d left it more than four hours before.
    Her gaze swept the adjacent living room, but nothing there seemed different, either. Reassured, she secured the lock and the dead bolt on the front door before she slipped the end of the safety chain into its slot.
    When she turned back, she raised her chin, slowly drawing air in through her nose again. The odor seemed less distinct than when she’d opened the door. Either the smell was fading or she was becoming accustomed to it. Still, she hovered in the hall, strangely reluctant to go farther into her own house. That scent, along with the absence of light—
    Only with the juxtaposition of the two did she realize what must have happened. She knew from school that when a fluorescent bulb failed, its dying was accompanied by a distinctively unpleasant smell.
    Relieved to have arrived at an explanation for both, she crossed the foyer and headed toward the kitchen. Although she didn’t have a replacement bulb on hand, she could at least verify that the old one had gone bad.
    When she reached the entrance, she could see moonlight shining through the glass half of the back door. She normally pulled the café curtains across it at night, but that was something else she must have forgotten.
    Without bothering to test the fluorescent, which had been her intent in coming here, she walked across the pale tile, her heels echoing with every step, and drew the fabric over the glass. Then, through force of habit, she checked the lock and the dead bolt. Both were secure.
    She turned, the burned-out bulb almost forgotten now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The familiarity of the room was reassuring. A little exasperated with her initial unease, she started back across the tile.
    Although she’d brought papers home this afternoon, she decided she was too tired to mark them. All she wanted to do was crawl into bed and go to sleep. She’d already taken a shower before she’d dressed for the meeting. She wasn’t going to take another. At least not tonight.
    She turned off the light in the front foyer and then, in the darkened house, moved down the hallway to the bathroom doorway. She reached inside the small room, flicking the switch up. She resisted the urge to put away the few items of makeup she’d left out on the counter as she’d gotten ready. Wasted effort since she’d use them again in the morning.
    She continued down the hall to her room. Without turning on the overhead, she slipped off her heels and carried them to the closet. The