Leaving the front door open, I head to the kitchen. Every nerve in my body is on edge and my hands are shaking, but I grab the biggest knife the Beaumonts have out of the knife block by the stove.
It’s not until I’m back at the kitchen doorway that I realize all the other knives are accounted for. So that’s good at least.
But what kind of serial killer doesn’t bring their own knife?
I go upstairs first. Slowly.
To Nate’s room.
The door is open how I left it—I think?—but that doesn’t make me feel any better. The room doesn’t look ransacked. In fact, it looks like it did when I left this morning.
But what if someone is hiding behind the door? I push it open a bit more.
Then I spring around the edge of it, knife raised.
No one there.
Nothing except the closed closet door. I reach for the handle but stop myself as all the nightmares of my childhood come back. The monsters in the closet. And the ones hiding under the bed.
I glance over my shoulder at the bed.
Is the stegosaurus rug out of place?
Quickly, I bend over and look under the bed, but there’s nothing under there. So I pull open the closet door, thrusting the knife forward into the darkness.
The empty darkness.
And now I’m starting to feel ridiculous. But someonewashere. They dismantled the doorbell camera and opened the front door. Maybe they opened the door expecting me to be inside. But I was out talking to Miles so they turned around and left.
I still check the bathroom and Easton’s room. Both are empty. Across the hall, Valencia and Marcus’s bedroom, too, is quiet andempty. Now I’m even more sure of it. Someone came in, expecting to find me here, alone. And when they didn’t, they left.
“Nate?”
I startle and almost scream, but stop when I realize it’s Valencia’s voice coming from the front hall.
“Up here!” And still holding a knife in my hand. Shit!
Valencia charges into the front hall, looking up to the balcony. “Why is the front door open?”
I have to tell her the truth. Someone definitely broke in and left. We’re out in the Maryland suburbs; there’s no reason for a random burglar to show up in the middle of the day. And that would be way too much of a coincidence. It has to be someone involved in taking Nate.
But when I reach the stairs, I stop myself.
Valencia is already on high alert. She has been since Nate was taken and she locked down the house. If I tell her someone broke in, that will only make it worse. She might up security, or she might not leave me alone ever. She might demand I go to work with her or Marcus every day and I’ll never get out of here.
She can’t know.
And maybe the person who knows I’m not Nate knows that, too.
My hands are tied, and I can’t tell the truth without risking my escape plan. And I still can’t stay here forever.
“The doorbell fell off,” I say. I lift the back of my shirt and carefully slide the knife into my waistband—oh, please don’t cut my butt.
“The doorbell...?” Valencia looks confused as I descend the stairs—carefully, so the knife doesn’t slip.
“The camera. Check the app. The last video shows it falling off. The batteries came out and I was fixing it, but I thought it might need some tape to hold it on properly. I was checking the linen closet. I’m not sure where you keep tape.”
Valencia stares at me like she doesn’t believe me. Then she steps backward to look at the doorbell camera. She reaches over and I can see her trying to jostle it. “It’s fine now.”
