Chapter 4
Four
Ava
The air in Greenfield Memory Care always smells the same: lavender floor wax and the faint, sour tang of industrial soup. It’s a stagnant smell. It’s the smell of things that aren't allowed to change.
I sign the logbook, my signature a unrecognizable scribble. Behind me, Silas is a wall of dark fabric and heavy silence. He’s an anchor keeping me from floating into the gray afternoon light, but he’s also the reminder.
Reagan was inside my home.
"She gets tired quickly. I won’t be longer than fifteen minutes," I say. My voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.
Silas doesn't argue. He just shifts his weight, his eyes already scanning the exit signs and the corners of the ceiling.
I walk down the carpeted hallway, past the framed prints of sunsets and the soft, piped-in piano music designed to keep the panic at bay. It doesn't work for me. My panic’s tucked behind my ribs, a cold, sharp stone that gets heavier with every step.
When I push open the door to Room 212, the afternoon sun is hitting the armchair. My mother’s waiting in her usual spot. She looks up, and for a heartbeat, her face catches the light.
“You’re early,” she says. Her smile’s wide and vacant, a gift meant for someone else.
“For what, Mom?” I ask. I sit on the edge of the bed, my back straight, my hands clamped together so she won't see them shake.
She studies me, her head tilting. The recognition I’m starving for flickers, then dies. “You’re Margaret’s niece. From the church. You brought the lemon cake last summer, didn't you?”
I don’t lie. But I don’t upset her either. “It was a good cake.”
“It was,” she whispers, her fingers plucking at the lace on her collar. “But my daughter’s supposed to come. Ava. Have you seen her? She’s a good girl. She’s very busy. She’s got a big job. People need her.”
I want to bury my face in her lap and tell her that our house is tainted, that a ghost has been watching me sleep, and that I don't feel like a "good girl" anymore. I feel like prey.
Instead, I reach out and take her hand. Her skin’s thin as parchment, cool and dry.
“Ava’s on her way,” I say. My voice is steady—the strongest thing left of me. “She called. She wanted me to tell you she loves you. She wanted you to know she’s safe.”
My mother’s face relaxes, the tension draining out of her at the mention of the daughter who, in her mind, isn't standing right in front of her. “I just worry. The world’s so big, isn’t it? It’s so easy to get lost.”
“She’s not lost,” I say, and for a second, I’m talking to the empty air. “She knows exactly where she is.”
We sit in silence for a long time. I watch the clock on the wall, the second hand ticking toward a day I don't know how to face. I watch her drift, her eyes clouding as the medication begins to pull her under.
“You’ve got her eyes,” she murmurs, her voice trailing off as her chin drops toward her chest. “Margaret’s niece... tell Ava to wear a coat. It’s getting cold.”
“I’ll tell her,” I whisper.
I stay until her breathing evens out, until she’s a hundred miles away in a memory I’m unable to enter.
Silas
I stand in the lobby of Greenfield Memory Care, back to a decorative pillar. From here, I’ve got a clear line of sight to the heavy glass entrance and the hallway where Ava vanished.
I pull my phone out and dial the precinct. I don’t get a direct line; I get a weary-sounding desk sergeant who transfers me to Detective Vance.
“Vance,” the man says, sounding like he’s chewing on a stale pencil.
“Detective, Silas Hightower. I’m the private security lead for Ava Morrison at Lindenford Manor. I’m calling to report a confirmed physical breach and long-term nesting at the property.”
I hear a sharp, derisive snort. “Lindenford? Let me guess. Ms. Morrison heard a floorboard creak again. Or did a branch hit the window during the storm? Listen, Hightower, we’ve sent patrol cars out to that museum four times in the last month. Every time, it’s nothing but an old house being old.”
My jaw tightens so hard my teeth ache. I force my voice to stay level, but the edges are fraying.
“This isn't a noise complaint, Detective. I’ve found physical modifications to the HVAC system in the third-floor guest suite. Someone’s established a surgical line of sight through the floorboards into the master bedroom.
There’s habitual wear on the drywall at the stair turns. This is a sophisticated predator.”
“Look, Hightower,” Vance cuts in, his tone hardening.
“I don't know what she’s paying you to tell her, but Ms. Morrison has a history of wasting department resources. She’s got a Grade 4 system that hasn't logged a single trip. If there was someone in that house, my boys would've found them. We’re not playing along with this anymore.”
I feel the heat crawling up my neck, a prickle of genuine fury. It’s not just the dismissal; it’s the casual, lazy arrogance of it.
“Your ‘boys’ looked for broken glass and forced entry,” I say, my voice dropping to a low, dangerous vibration.
“They didn't look for a ghost code in the alarm logs or a modified vent cover. This person is bypassing your standard protocols. I can get the logs that verify it. If you’ve got a tech who actually knows how to read an override sequence, I’ll send them over.
Otherwise, you're leaving her wide open.”
He scoffs down the line. “You’re a real piece of work,” Vance says.
“You come into my town, tell me my officers are incompetent, and then ask me to chase another one of Ms. Morrison’s fantasies?
I’ve got actual homicides on my desk. I’ve got real victims who don't live in sixteen-thousand-square-foot fortresses.”
I close my eyes for a second, gripped by the urge to reach through the phone.
“She’s going to be a ‘real victim’ if you don't take this seriously. The screws on that vent were seated with professional precision. No paint chips, no stripping. He’s been in there for weeks.
He’s watching her sleep. Does that sound like a fantasy to you? ”
“Then move her,” Vance snaps. “You’re the high-priced security guy. Do your job and stop trying to make it mine. If you find a body or a smoking gun, call 911. Otherwise, stay off my line.”
The dial tone hits like a slap.
I pull the phone away and stare at the screen, my hand shaking slightly with a surge of adrenaline I have nowhere to put. I’ve dealt with bureaucrats before, but this is different. This is negligence masquerading as cynicism.
I look at the hallway. Twelve minutes. Ava’s still in there, convinced that a badge and a title mean the gears are finally turning.
She thinks she’s safe. Now I have to tell her that her "protection" just dialed out.
Ava
I push through the fire doors, and the morning sun hits me full in the face, bright and aggressive against the glass of the lobby.
I scan the room, searching for a uniformed officer. The lobby is empty except for Silas.
He’s standing near the reception desk, a dark, rigid shape against the morning light. He hasn't moved an inch. He’s watching the automatic doors with a look that makes the air in the room feel brittle.
"Silas?" I ask. My voice sounds thin, rattling against the high ceiling.
He turns. His face is hard, his jaw set so tight I can see the muscle jumping in his cheek.
"Ready?" he asks. His voice is a low, vibrating rasp.
"Did you call the police? Do we need to go to the station?" I shift my bag on my shoulder, my fingers fumbling with my keys.
Silas doesn't move. He doesn't even blink. "We aren't going to the station."
I stop midstride. "Why not?"
"I called the precinct," Silas says. He steps toward me, his shadow falling over me, blotting out the sun. "I told the detective exactly what I found."
"And?" I wait for the part where the police are on their way to Lindenford. "When are they meeting us?"
"They aren't." Silas’s voice is flat. “Vance is refusing to dispatch. He says because the alarm never tripped and because I’m a private contractor, he’s not treating this as a crime."
The air leaves my lungs. I feel the blood drain from my face, leaving me cold in the middle of the sunny room. "A crime? Someone was living in my home!"
"In their eyes, you're the woman who's called them four times this month for nothing," Silas says.
A bitter, hollow heat rises in my throat. Every night I lay awake in that house, heart hammering, telling myself I was safe because I was following the rules—I was reporting everything, keeping a record, trusting the police. It was all a lie.
“They think I’m overreacting,” I whisper. The realization settles, sharp and hollow. “They’re done with me.”
His gaze pins mine. “Vance might be done.” He opens the door, steady, unyielding. “But I’m not.”
Silas
Under the concrete canopy of the overpass, the air is thick with the scent of stale rain and exhaust. The homeless are dug in here, clustered in small, desperate fire-teams. Their possessions are piled into rusted carts like salvaged gear from a retreat—a grim, gray landscape of people the world has declared "acceptable losses. "
Against my wishes, Ava moves through them with two canvas bags, one holding donuts from a local bakery, the other insulated and steaming with coffee.
I position myself forty feet back, angled toward the street, where I can monitor both directions.
My job is to look like I belong here—a man checking his phone, waiting for someone, nothing remarkable.
I've done it a hundred times in a hundred countries.
But I've never done it while watching a woman give away time and genuine attention to people most of the city has forgotten.
I let my gaze drift, lazy on the surface, cataloguing instead of searching. Reflections in storefront glass. The rhythm of traffic. Footsteps that don’t belong.
Pressure settles at the base of my skull—low, insistent. The kind that doesn’t come from nerves or imagination. Years in hostile territory taught me the difference.
Two blocks north, half swallowed by the shadow of a shuttered warehouse, a dark sedan sits at an angle that makes no sense for parking. Too sharp. Too deliberate. Tinted windows. No visible driver.
It’s positioned to see Ashford Street clearly. Positioned to see her.
My jaw tightens.
Every instinct in me screams to end this now. To step in. To break the pattern before it hurts someone. But I hold position, because panic attracts attention, and attention gets people killed.
An hour ticks by. My eyes stayed glued to the sedan.
The homeless community lingers nearby, reluctant to let her go. She’s a dangerous mix of kindness and competence. Mother Teresa with triage instincts.
When the sedan moves, I cross the distance between us in three long strides.
“Time to go,” I say quietly.
She looks up, reads my face, and doesn’t argue and lets me steer her back to my vehicle.
When she’s buckled in, I push the earpiece in as I pull away, eyes on the rearview, mapping exits and alternates, and pray I’m not misremembering.
Axel picks up on the third ring.
“What’s on fire?”
I almost smile. “Nothing yet. Everything locked down there?”
“If I say Caleb’s running things as well as you, will you be insulted?”
“Nope.”
“Good. What do you need?”
“Am I right in thinking you have a cousin with a cabin up on Gambrill Mountain?”
“You’re not wrong. You need to borrow it?”
I glance at Ava. She’s watching me closely. Close enough that I choose my words carefully. “Give me the specs.”
He doesn’t hesitate. Isolated access road. Tree cover. Own well. Backup generator. No nearby neighbors. Two bedrooms, one bath.
“He’s two parts hillbilly, one part prepper,” Axel adds. “If you need to hole up off-grid, it’s your best bet.”
“Is it vacant?”
“Yeah. He’s cage diving with Great Whites in Australia.”
“Double-check with him. I don’t want surprises.”
A pause. “Will do. Anything else you need right now?”
I glance in the mirror, watching the street recede. Watching the people Ava cares about become smaller and more vulnerable by the second.
“Yes,” I say. “Call a prayer meeting. I want everyone praying.” My grip tightens on the wheel. “We don’t walk into this without God.”