Chapter 2 - The Open Door
The rain felt like needles against my face as I stood on the porch. The world smelled of ozone, wet earth, and the cold metallic tang of old brass. The front door of my daughter's house was unlatched, swaying less than an inch in the wind. A thin ribbon of darkness separated the exterior storm from the absolute silence inside.
I didn't draw a weapon because I didn't have one. I had my grandfather's heavy silver flashlight, a solid piece of machined steel, gripped so tightly in my right hand that my knuckles ached.
"Clare?" I whispered. The sound was swallowed instantly by the rumble of thunder overhead.
I stepped over the threshold. The hardwood floor of the entryway was slick with rainwater. Someone had walked in recently; the mud tracks were fresh, glistening under the faint ambient light from the storm outside. They were small prints—too small for a large man, but deliberate.
I bypassed the kitchen, where a single half-filled glass of water sat on the counter next to an open bottle of aspirin. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Every instinct honed from decades of living in these isolated hills told me to move slowly, to listen between the cracks of the thunder.
Then came the second creak from upstairs. It wasn't the house settling. It was the distinct, rhythmic shift of weight over the loose pine plank right outside Noah and Lily's bedroom—the one Christian always promised to fix but never did.
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I reached the foot of the stairs. The air up there felt heavier, colder. I began to climb, placing my boots on the very outer edges of the steps where the wood was anchored tightest to the wall. Step one. Step two. Step three. With every rise, the envelope in my jacket pocket crinkled against my chest, a heavy reminder that the man I thought I knew did not exist. The man in the hospital bed was a ghost with a stolen name.
When I reached the top landing, the door to the children's room was wide open. A figure stood over Noah’s small bed, silhouetted against the window where the lightning flashed.
