Chapter Two—Julie
DALEN DOESN’T GO TO work. He sends a text to his assistant while I stand in the mudroom staring at the open back door. Morning air keeps spilling into the house, cold against my bare ankles, and I finally step away from it when he comes back inside.
“I have a nine-thirty meeting with a contractor.” I look at the clock on the microwave. “I should leave in twenty minutes.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we figure out how that door opened.”
His tone isn’t bossy. It’s the same one he uses when there’s a problem and he’s already mentally clearing everything else out of its way.
I pick up my coffee from the counter. “I’m pretty sure Patricia’s contractor would be delighted if I vanished today.”
“He’ll survive.”
“He’s already suffering. I’m moving his island.”
Dalen gives me a distracted look as he locks the door again. He turns the deadbolt, tugs the handle, then does it a second time before stepping back. “There’s nothing wrong with the lock.”
“I know.”
He looks at me.
I lift my cup. “Sorry. I’m aware that’s not helpful.”
“No, it’s helpful. You locked it.”
“I did.”
“You checked it.”
“Twice.”
He nods and takes out his phone. There’s no hesitation this morning. No suggestion that maybe I was half asleep when I checked it or that I only thought I did. He believed me last night when I told him someone had been standing beside our bed, and he believes me now.
That should make me feel better.
It mostly does.
I follow him to the kitchen island while he opens the security app.
The exterior cameras aren’t new. Dalen had them installed before I moved in, back when he traveled more and this house sat empty several nights a month.
There are cameras over the front and back entrances, the driveway, garage, and side gate.
I know they’re there. I rarely think about them.
Dalen pulls up the back camera and moves through the recording until he finds us cleaning the kitchen last night. The angle catches most of the patio and the door itself.
“There.” I lean closer.
On-screen, Dalen opens the door to let the smoke out. Later, he closes it.
We keep watching.
Meg leaves through the front, so she never appears on this camera. Dalen and I move in and out of view through the windows as we finish cleaning. Eventually, the kitchen goes dark.
Nothing happens.
Dalen speeds up the recording. The patio remains empty.
“Slow it down.”
He does.
At 10:47, the kitchen light comes back on. I appear through the glass, walk to the door, and check the lock. Even without sound, I recognize the little tug I give the handle.
Dalen looks at me.
“I told you.”
“I know you did.”
The recording continues. I leave the kitchen. The patio stays empty for the rest of the night.
Then pale morning begins creeping across the stone.
At 6:58, the back door opens.
I grip the edge of the island. “Where am I?”
Dalen rewinds and plays it again.
The door opens inward several inches. Nobody comes through it. From the camera angle, we can’t see the interior handle or most of the mudroom.
He changes to the side camera. Nothing.
The driveway camera shows nobody arriving. The front camera is equally boring.
I set down my coffee. “So I locked it, and seven hours later it opened itself.”
“Doors don’t open themselves.”
“That’s comforting.”
Dalen scrubs a hand over his jaw. He hasn’t shaved yet, and I hear the faint rasp of his palm against the stubble. “Somebody could’ve already been inside.”
The thought turns my stomach.
Last night comes back with ugly clarity. The darkness. The certainty that someone was beside me. The empty space when the light came on.
I fold my arms and rub my hands over them. “You checked the whole house.”
“After you woke me.”
“I would’ve heard someone moving around.”
“Maybe.”
I look toward the stairs.
Dalen notices and moves closer, resting his hands on my upper arms. “Julie.”
“I don’t like that answer.”
“Neither do I.”
His phone rings on the island. He glances at the screen, silences it, and turns his attention back to me.
“What if someone was in here before we set the alarm?”
“We’re going to find out.”
I give him a look. “That’s very billionaire of you.”
His mouth moves slightly. “I was going for reassuring husband.”
“You’re better at billionaire.”
“Good to know.”
I lean forward and rest my forehead against his chest. Dalen wraps his arms around me without saying anything else. His shirt smells like his cologne and the coffee he probably spilled on himself while making mine. I stay there longer than I intend to.
My phone rings from inside my bag.
I groan.
Dalen kisses the top of my head before releasing me. “Contractor?”
“Probably. He’s had enough time to mourn.”
It’s my assistant, Lauren, asking whether I’m still meeting the contractor at the Salish house. I tell her to push it to this afternoon and handle my ten o’clock showroom appointment without me.
When I hang up, Dalen is already making a call.
A security company arrives before nine.
Apparently, money can make people appear very quickly on a Monday morning.
I change out of my work clothes while Dalen deals with them downstairs. By the time I come back wearing jeans and a sweater, two men are checking doors and windows while a third sits at our kitchen island with a laptop.
I stop beside Dalen. “This seems excessive.”
“Someone was in our bedroom.”
“Maybe.”
He looks at me. “You said you didn’t dream it.”
“I don’t think I did.”
“Then someone was in our bedroom.”
The certainty should irritate me because I don’t have it anymore. Instead, I want to hug him.
I settle for slipping my hand into his.
The security people find nothing wrong with the alarm. Nothing malfunctioned during the night. Every exterior sensor worked as designed, and the system shows the same thing the cameras do. We armed the house. Nobody opened an exterior door or window until the back door opened this morning.
One of the technicians asks whether the door could’ve failed to latch completely.
“I tugged it after I locked it,” I say.
Dalen squeezes my hand.
The man nods and moves on without arguing.
They spend another hour checking everything while I try to answer emails at the kitchen table. I get through half of one about wallpaper samples before realizing I’ve read the same sentence four times.
Someone could’ve been inside our house.
The thought keeps circling back.
I close the laptop and go upstairs.
Our bedroom looks painfully ordinary in daylight. The bed is still unmade. My robe lies across the bench because I dropped it there after my shower. Dalen’s glasses are on my nightstand where he left them last night.
I pick them up and carry them to his side.
Habit.
I stand there for a few seconds afterward, looking at the rug beside my side of the bed.
There’s nothing on it. No dirt, mark, dropped object, or proof that anyone stood there.
I crouch anyway.
The security team checked the windows. Dalen checked beneath the bed last night. I don’t know what I’m looking for, and that irritates me almost as much as being afraid.
I straighten and turn toward my dresser.
The jewelry case is open.
I stop.
I don’t leave it open.
That thought comes with far less certainty than the door. I probably opened it yesterday. Maybe Saturday. I wore small gold hoops to Patricia’s, and I usually keep them in the top tray.
I walk over and look inside.
The earrings are there.
So are the bracelets I wear most often, the pearl studs Meg gave me for my birthday, and the ring that belonged to my grandmother.
I start to close the lid.
Then I notice the empty hook.
My anniversary necklace is gone.
I open the case fully and move the top tray aside. Maybe I dropped it into the lower compartment after the last time I wore it. I shift two bracelets and a watch, then check the small drawers.
Nothing.
I pull open my dresser drawer.
Nothing there either.
My pulse picks up.
“Dalen?”
His footsteps come up the stairs almost immediately. He appears in the doorway with his phone in one hand. “What?”
“My necklace is gone.”
He comes toward me. “Which one?”
“The anniversary necklace.”
The answer changes his face.
For our fifth anniversary, Dalen gave me a thin platinum chain with three small diamonds. It isn’t the most expensive piece of jewelry I own. It is the one I wear most.
He looks into the case. “When did you last have it?”
“Friday.” I touch my throat as I remember. “We had dinner with the Waltons. I wore the green dress.”
“You took it off when we got home.”
“I always put it here.”
Dalen opens one of the drawers.
I catch his wrist. “I checked.”
“I know. I’m checking again.”
I let him.
He goes through the jewelry case more carefully than I did, then checks the dresser and my nightstand. I move to the closet and search the shelf where I sometimes drop jewelry while changing.
“Maybe I left it in the bathroom.”
I check there too.
By the time I come back, Dalen has called one of the security men upstairs.
I stop in the doorway. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Dalen, I could’ve misplaced it.”
“You could’ve.”
I wait.
He looks at the technician. “Check this room again.”
I know that tone. The technician knows it too. He starts with the windows.
I take Dalen by the arm and pull him into the hall. “You’re going to have cameras in our bedroom by lunch, aren’t you?”
“No.”
I blink because I expected a fight.
He slips his phone into his pocket. “I want one in the upstairs hall and one covering the stairs. I don’t want a camera in our bedroom.”
Some of the tension leaves my shoulders. “Okay.”
“I also want interior coverage downstairs.”
“Reasonable.”
“And the locks changed.”
“They aren’t broken.”
“Julie.”
I hold up a hand. “Fine. New locks.”
His mouth twitches. “That was easier than expected.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
He touches my cheek, and I lean into his palm for a second before going back into the bedroom.
The necklace doesn’t appear.
Neither does any explanation for where it went.