Chapter 4 - The Unfamiliar Past
The silence stretched for what felt like an eternity. Then, a low chuckle vibrated through the dark.
"Not here," the man muttered to himself.
The footsteps started up again, moving away from our hiding spot, heading deeper into the woods toward the eastern boundary of our property. I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding, my muscles aching from the tension.
We waited another ten minutes until the forest returned to its natural state. I knew we couldn't stay here. Hypothermia would claim us long before the intruder did if we remained exposed in the damp Pacific Northwest night.
"Emma," I whispered. "We're going to walk back toward the road, but we're going to stay in the shadows. Okay?"
She nodded against my neck, her small body vibrating with uncontrollable shivers.
We crawled out from behind the log and began making our way back toward the edge of the woods, keeping our movements slow and deliberate. When we reached the clearing, the house stood silent. The intruder hadn't turned off the lights; the living room was still brightly illuminated, a beacon of false safety.
I didn't dare go back inside, but Tom’s old pickup truck was parked in the driveway. Tom took his company sedan for business trips, leaving the rugged old Ford behind. I sprinted across the open lawn to the truck, opened the driver's side door, and shoved Emma into the footwell of the passenger side.
"Stay down," I instructed.
I reached up to the sun visor—Tom always kept a spare set of keys there. My fingers brushed against metal. Yes. I pulled them down and slid into the driver's seat, locking all the doors immediately.
Before twisting the ignition, I noticed something on the passenger seat. It was a thick manila envelope, unsealed, with Tom’s handwriting on the front: Property Records - Confidential.
My hands shook as I pulled the papers out under the dim moonlight. I shouldn't have been looking at documents while a killer was hunting us, but a strange, gnawing instinct told me the answers to this nightmare were inside.
I flipped through the pages. They were court documents, police reports, and death certificates from another state—Montana.
My eyes locked onto a photograph attached to a police report. It was a picture of Tom's first wife, Sarah. She looked beautiful, smiling in front of a mountain backdrop. But it was the text beneath her name that made my breath catch in my throat.
Cause of death: Homicide. Suspect: David Vance (Brother).
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Beneath that, a note in Tom’s messy script read: Vance released on parole violation appeal. Tracked to Oregon.
Tom hadn't told me the truth. Sarah hadn't died of an illness, as he had gently led me to believe when we met. She had been murdered. And her killer—her own brother—was out, and he had found us.
