Short Story: Fragility Part 2

This is part of a serial, find the previous parts here.

Foregoing the third bowl of cereal, he got up, bypassed the shower, and went straight to work. He worked diligently, at least he thought so, only pausing three or four times to watch TV. At 4:59 p.m., he emailed in his article, grabbed a change of clothes, and finally took that elusive shower.
When he exited the bathroom, he realized that Pat wasn’t home yet. She usually made it home by 3 p.m. He knocked on her bedroom door but heard nothing from inside. He walked back to his bedroom, found his cell phone, and dialed Pat’s number. Straight to voicemail. Pat had a rigid routine, but she was only a couple of hours overdue.

Chris’s stomach rumbled and he realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. He ventured into the kitchen and started throwing together a casserole. By the time he polished off his second helping it was just after 8 p.m. He tried Pat on her cell phone again but she still didn’t answer. He left a message this time. “Give me a call back when you get this and let me know you’re okay.”

Turning on the TV, Chris sat on the couch hoping to occupy his mind. It was all he could do not to call Pat’s phone every five minutes. He tried to keep in mind that there was probably a reasonable explanation, and she was going to give him enough grief for being so paranoid when she finally made it home. At some point Chris drifted off to sleep on the couch. It was 4:27 a.m., according to his digital watch, when he awoke to the sound of keys sliding into the front door. Oh, thank God, Chris thought.

He got off the couch, walked to the door and unlocked the deadbolt. “It’s about time–” Chris was talking to an empty hallway. He stretched out further into the hall and looked up and down to see if anyone was out there. Empty. He looked down at the doorknob and found keys dangling from the lock. He scanned the hall again. Nothing. He grabbed the keys, closed the door, and locked it up again.

He fished his cell phone out of his pants pocket and dialed Pat’s phone. Voicemail. He decided to check her room again, in case she snuck in while he was sleeping on the couch. Knocking softly at first, he soon gave up on being quiet, burst into her room, and turned on the light. The bed was still made.
A chill ran up Chris’s spine. He pulled out his phone again. There had to be someone else he could check with, somewhere Pat might have stayed the night. He didn’t recall her hanging out with anyone else since she’d moved in. In fact, it was always just the two of them. He could try her mom. He opened his phone. It dawned on him that in all the years he’d known Pat he’d never met her mom. He couldn’t even recall her name. That’s it, I’m just going to have to call the police, he thought, turning off the light and exiting Pat’s room. He heard a faint creaking of floorboards behind him. He started to turn—