Chapter 10 #2
batteries, but only three are still inside. I find one on the steps and look around for the others. One has rolled down the
stairs and landed on the walkway. The other went to the right of the door into the mulch bed.
I replace the batteries and remount the doorbell while the power-up light above the camera lens circles in white. The way
it’s mounted, I need to flick a lever on the bottom to resecure it.
I open the doorbell camera app and look at the last video taken. It’s from seven minutes ago. I click it and wait for it to
load.
The clip is short. Only a few seconds of the front yard before the camera shifts and falls forward onto the concrete.
I replay it, turning up the volume. Right before the camera falls, there’s a loud click.
I turn back to the doorbell and unlatch the lock on the bottom of it, and it makes a similar snick sound.
I play the video again, only this time I use my finger to play it frame by frame.
The camera shifts. Tilts. Falls. And then I see it.
It feels like I’ve fallen through ice into a frozen lake.
There are two fingers in the bottom right corner of the screen. At least, they look like fingers. They’re pink and rounded,
but only an inch or so was caught on the video. When I search the front step, I don’t see anything that could possibly be
confused for fingers. Nothing growing up from the mulch beside the door. No trick of the light.
Someone’s here.
I spin quickly, expecting to see someone waiting behind me. But the doorway is empty.
What the hell do I do? Call the police? I can’t do that; they’d show up and ask more questions, and right now I am not calm. My heart is beating so hard I don’t think I’ve ever been this scared in my life. It’s like my whole chest is pounding.
I step inside and listen to the silence of the house. Trying to hear anyone walking around. This is the creakiest fucking
old house I’ve ever been in; I should be able to hear something!
But the silence is even worse.
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 someone was here. 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 and empty. 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.”
“Maybe it wasn’t set right whenever you last changed the batteries?” I suggest.
She nods but still looks concerned. “Please don’t leave the door open again.”
“I won’t, sorry.”
Valencia attempts a smile, but it doesn’t feel genuine. “Can you help me bring in the groceries?”
“Of course, yeah.” I back up in the direction of the kitchen. “I’ll go through the garage if you want to close the front door.”
She nods and closes it. I take out the knife and run back into the kitchen. I turn on the faucet and rinse it off—I mean,
it was only against my underwear, which is clean, but the idea kind of skeeves me—then I put it back in the knife block and run to
the garage door to help Valencia bring the groceries in. I try to put on a calm face, but my hands are still shaking, and
it feels like I’m going to crawl out of my skin. This is all so damn overwhelming.
I thought I could do this; that it would be better than going to juvie. But instead this feels like a different kind of prison
where I need to watch every single thing I say. And now I feel like someone is watching me.
As I reach for the garage door handle, my heart catches in my chest.
When I went outside, I used the back door that went to the deck. That door was unlocked the whole time.
But I know for a fact the front door was locked.
So whoever opened it had a key.