MARCUS (6 MISSED)
WINTERS (4 MISSED)
MOM (3 MISSED)
PORTLAND FIELD OFFICE (2 MISSED)
Her chest tightened.
She should call.Sheshould.
She didn't.
Instead, she switched the phone to silent, placed it screen-down on the passenger seat, and opened the car door.
Heat rushed in, thick and living.
She stepped out onto the asphalt, closed the door softly behind her, and stared at the house that had birthed some of her best memories and some of her worst.
The air smelled of grass.Lilac.And something faint beneath it—something metallic, almost imperceptible.
Her pulse quickened.
Her feet carried her forward.
Toward Mulberries.
Toward what waited.
Toward the danger she had chosen.
She walked up the path, every sense on alert.Each step brought a new layer of certainty.
What she was doing was reckless.Foolish.Career-ending.
But she couldn’t shake the realization settling, cold and sure, in her marrow:
She was meant to be here.
Safe or not.
Wise or not.
And whatever waited behind that door—whatever threat had knotted itself around her past—it had already begun.
Kate mounted the porch.
Placed her hand on the doorknob.
And turned it.
Kate pushed the front door inward with the kind of caution that felt instinctive rather than tactical—like muscle memory from childhood.The hinges gave a polite little sigh, nothing more.The entryway looked untouched.Dust motes floated like drifting pollen in the warm, honey-colored light.
“Hello?”she called out, though she didn’t expect—didn’t want—an answer.
No response.
Just the creak of the old house adjusting its bones.
