Chapter 2: Someone Was Upstairs
I climbed the stairs without turning on a single light.
The sunlight coming through the large windows made the hallway bright, but my palms were damp against the wooden railing.
At the top of the stairs, I stopped.
Lily's bedroom door was open.
I distinctly remembered closing it that morning.
I stood there, listening.
Nothing.
Then came another sound.
A soft tap.
Followed by a scrape, as if something heavy had been dragged across the floor.
I stepped into the doorway.
Lily's bed was neatly made. Her stuffed rabbit sat against the pillows. Her school art projects covered the wall above her desk, and a pink water bottle stood beside a stack of library books.
There was no one in the room.
I checked behind the curtains.
Nothing.
I opened the closet.
Only clothes, shoes, and the plastic storage boxes I'd organized the previous weekend.
I crouched and looked beneath the desk.
Empty.
My heartbeat became so loud that I could hear it in my ears.
“Hello?”” I called.
My voice sounded unfamiliar.
No answer.
I stepped back into the hallway.
A floorboard creaked behind me.
I spun around.
The hallway was empty.
Then I heard a faint metallic click from somewhere near the staircase.
I couldn't tell whether it had come from the front door or the kitchen below.
My first instinct was to run downstairs, grab my phone, and get out of the house.
My second instinct was to look at Lily's bed.
I didn't know why.
Perhaps it was the strange way the comforter hung over one side. Perhaps it was the memory of her question in the driveway.
Can we lock the bedroom door tonight?
I dropped to my knees.
The carpet pressed into my skin as I lowered my head toward the space beneath the bed.
It was empty.
For one brief second, relief washed through me.
Then I heard footsteps in the hallway.
Not mine.
Not the soft, familiar steps of my daughter.
These were heavier.
Slower.
I slid beneath the bed and pressed myself against the carpet.
Dust tickled my nose. I clamped a hand over my mouth, forcing myself not to cough.
The reflected daylight from the bedroom windows illuminated the floor beneath the bed. I could see the white baseboards, the corner of Lily's discarded slipper, and the tiny silver star she had once lost from her backpack.
I stared at the doorway.
The footsteps stopped.
Silence.
I could hear someone breathing.
A man's breathing.
The bedroom door began to move.
Its hinges made a faint, almost polite sound.
I pressed my other hand against the carpet, fighting the urge to scramble out and run.
The door opened wider.
A man's shoes appeared in the doorway.
Black.
Heavy.
The toes were scuffed, and a thin streak of dried mud marked the right heel.
He stepped into the room.
One step.
Then another.
I could see only his legs from the knees down.
He walked toward Lily's desk and stopped.
A drawer slid open.
Something rattled inside.
Then the drawer closed.
I held my breath until my chest hurt.
The man crossed the room.
His shoes stopped beside the bed.
So close that I could see the stitching around the leather.
I stared at them, barely blinking.
The right shoe turned slightly toward the space beneath me.
I pressed my palm harder against my mouth.
He stood there for several seconds.
Then his foot moved.
One slow step toward the bed.
My whole body locked.
The shoe stopped just beyond the hanging comforter.
I could see a tiny piece of pale lint caught in the tread.
He was close enough to reach down.
Close enough to see me.
Then his shoes turned away.
I heard the closet door slide open.
A box shifted.
Something small fell to the floor.
The man muttered under his breath, too quietly for me to understand.
I didn't move.
I didn't even dare to swallow.
Finally, the footsteps retreated toward the hallway.
The bedroom door remained open.
I counted silently.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then I heard the sound of a door closing downstairs.
I waited another full minute before sliding out from under the bed.
My knees trembled so badly that I had to grip the mattress to stand.
The room looked almost untouched.
Almost.
The closet door was open, and one of the storage boxes had been pulled halfway onto the floor.
I reached for my phone with shaking fingers.
I was about to call the police when I noticed something on Lily's desk.
A small white envelope.
It hadn't been there that morning.
My name was written across the front in black ink.
*NAOMI.*
No address.
No stamp.
No explanation.
I stared at it, trying to remember whether Lily had left me a note.
Then I noticed the envelope was tucked beneath her school photograph.
The photograph had been turned facedown.
My fingers went numb.
I lifted it.
Lily's smiling face stared back at me from the picture, her blue school polo perfectly buttoned and her black backpack hanging from one shoulder.
Someone had drawn a thin red line across the photograph.
Not across her face.
Across the background.
Across the house behind her.
My house.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single photograph of my front driveway, taken from across the street.
My SUV was parked beside the garage.
I stood near the driver's door.
And behind me, partly hidden by the reflection in the front window, was the unmistakable shape of a man wearing dark trousers and heavy black shoes.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written six words.
*You leave. He comes inside.*
I stumbled backward and gripped the desk.
Mrs. Carter had been right.
This wasn't a stranger wandering into the wrong house.
Someone had been watching my routine.
Someone knew exactly when I left.
And someone had put that photograph in my daughter's bedroom.
My phone vibrated in my hand.
An unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
For several seconds, there was only silence.
Then a woman's voice whispered, “Naomi, you need to listen carefully.””
I gripped the phone.
“Who is this?””
“Don't go to the police yet.””
My blood ran cold.
“Who are you?””
The woman took a shaky breath.
“Your daughter isn't the reason he's coming into that house.””
I pressed my free hand against the desk.
“Then what does he want?””
A pause.
Then she said something that made my knees nearly give way.
“He's looking for what your husband hid.””
My husband, Marcus, had been dead for three years.
And the last time I'd seen his face, he had been lying in a hospital bed, telling me that everything would be all right.
The woman on the phone whispered one final sentence.
“Check the back of Lily's school photograph. There's something behind it.””
The call disconnected.
I stared at the phone.
Then I turned the photograph over again.
Behind the cardboard backing, a thin corner of paper protruded from the frame.
I pulled it free.
It was a folded sheet covered in Marcus's handwriting.
At the top, he'd written a date.
Tomorrow's date.
May you like
And beneath it were four words.
*If you're reading this, run.*
