Chapter 31 - The Shadow on the Porch
"She wouldn't come here," Caleb said, his voice desperate, trying to convince himself more than us. "She knows the police are watching this place. She knows she has nowhere to run."
"People who cut their ankle monitors aren't thinking about legal jurisdictions, Caleb," Patrice said, already standing up and walking toward the living room window to check the blinds. "They’re thinking about survival, or revenge."
Marcus pulled out his phone. "I'm calling Kowalski to post a permanent cruiser at the end of the driveway."
Before Marcus could dial, the lights inside the house flickered.
Once. Twice.
Then, with a heavy, mechanical hum, the entire first floor plunged into pitch-black darkness.
"Stay still," I said immediately. My voice didn't waver. "The circuit breaker is on the exterior wall by the garage."
Outside, the autumn wind howled against the side of the house, rattling the large bay windows. Patrice pulled her phone from her pocket, clicking the flashlight on and pointing the beam toward the floor.
Then came the sound.
It wasn't a tentative tap, nor was it the polite ring of the front doorbell.
It was a slow, deliberate scrape across the wood of the front porch.
*Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.*
Like metal dragging against aged timber.
Caleb moved toward the hallway, his face pale in the harsh glare of Patrice’s phone light. "Mom, stay back. I'll—"
"You will stay right where you are," I whispered, reaching into the hidden drawer beneath Arthur’s roll-top desk—the one place in the house no one touched, where Arthur's old service revolver had rested in its oiled leather holster for thirty years.
My fingers closed around the cold, checkered wooden grip.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed on the dining table. A single text notification illuminated the dark wood.
It was an unknown number.
I leaned down, keeping my eyes fixed on the hallway, and looked at the screen.
May you like
*“He didn't just take the money, Myrna,”* the text read. *“He came back for the rest of what Arthur buried under the floorboards. Open the back door, or I let him burn the house with the kids inside.”*
From the back kitchen door, the heavy brass deadbolt slowly, impossibly, began to turn.
