Chapter 20
NOW
The taxi drops me at the end of my driveway again.
Different driver this time – a woman with acrylic nails who taps them against the steering wheel in a rhythm that sets me on edge.
She doesn’t look at my clothes, doesn’t notice the stains I’ve tried to scrub out in the hospital bathroom.
Just takes my money and pulls away before I’ve fully closed the door.
It’s been two days since the attack, when Richard’s blood pooled on my hallway floor. I’ve spent that time sitting in plastic chairs and watching monitors and hoping he would wake up.
He hasn’t woken up.
The doctors use words like ‘encouraging signs’ and ‘cautiously optimistic’, but I’ve learned to read between the lines. They don’t know. They’re waiting, same as me. Hoping his brain will decide to repair itself rather than shut down entirely.
I stand on the sidewalk, looking at my house. The boarded window is still there. The curtains are drawn exactly as I left them. Everything looks normal, untouched, as if the violence that happened inside was just a bad dream.
That’s when I notice the gate.
It’s open.
Not wide open – just slightly ajar, the latch hanging loose like someone couldn’t be bothered to close it properly. Or didn’t want to make noise doing so.
I always lock the gate. Always. It’s part of my routine now, embedded in the same obsessive checking that governs everything else in my life. Front door, back door, windows, gate. I do it without thinking. Do it even when I’m half-asleep or distracted or falling apart at the seams.
The gate was locked when I left for the hospital yesterday morning. I remember testing it twice before getting in the taxi. So either the wind blew it open – which would require the latch to fail – or someone has been here.
Someone has been here while I was sitting with Richard.
My pulse kicks up. That familiar flood of adrenaline that’s become my constant companion.
I should call someone. Should call the police and report this.
But what would I say? My gate is open, Officer.
Send backup. Harvey already thinks I’m unstable and hiding something.
Another paranoid phone call would only confirm his suspicions.
I talk myself into walking up the driveway.
The gravel crunches under my feet, too loud in the morning quiet.
Each step feels exposed, like I’m walking across a stage with an audience I can’t see.
I scan the house for signs of disturbance – broken windows, forced doors, anything that would indicate the intruder came back to finish what they started.
But everything looks intact. The boarded kitchen window.
The front door with its gleaming brass knocker.
The potted plants I’ve neglected since moving in, their leaves brown and curling.
Then I see the footprints.
They’re by the front door, pressed into the soft earth of the flower bed that runs along the front of the house. Muddy impressions that weren’t there before. Large, deep, the tread pattern of boots rather than shoes. Someone stood here. Stood right outside my door, close enough to touch it.
My breath catches. I take a step back without meaning to, my body reacting before my mind can process what I’m seeing.
Someone was here. Right here. Inches from where I’m standing now.
I crouch to examine the prints, my heart hammering against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat.
The prints are fresh – the edges still crisp, not yet softened by rain or time.
They lead from the gate to the door and then…
where? I scan the flower bed, the path, the gravel.
More prints, fainter now, tracking round the side of the house towards the garden.
Towards the boarded window.
I should leave. Should walk straight back to the road and call a taxi and go somewhere – anywhere – that isn’t here. Every instinct screams at me to run, to put as much distance as possible between myself and whatever’s waiting round that corner. My legs tremble with the urge to flee.
But something holds me in place. Some need to know and see for myself what’s been happening while I’ve been gone. The same terrible curiosity that makes you look at car crashes, at crime scenes, at the wreckage of other people’s lives.
I follow the prints.
They curve round the house, skirting the trash cans, pressing deep into the muddy strip between the wall and the fence.
The path is narrow here, barely wide enough for one person.
Whoever made these prints wasn’t just passing through.
They were moving with intention towards a destination they’d already chosen.
The air feels different back here. Colder. Thicker. Like the temperature has dropped ten degrees in the space of a few feet. I wrap my arms around myself and keep walking, each step heavier than the last, my pulse loud in my ears.
And then I hear it.
A sound. Small. Behind me.
I spin round, my heart lurching into my throat. The path stretches back around the house, empty. Just mud and fence and the corner I came round moments ago. Nothing there. No one there.
But I could have sworn…
I hold my breath. Listen.
Silence. Just the distant hum of traffic from the main road. The rustle of leaves in someone’s garden. Normal sounds.
Except nothing feels safe any more.
I turn back towards the boarded window, moving faster now.
The need to see has become something else – the need to get this over with, face whatever’s waiting so I can stop imagining it.
My legs feel weak, disconnected from the rest of me.
My hands won’t stop shaking no matter how tightly I grip them together.
The boarded window comes into view. The plywood is still intact, nails still driven deep into the frame. But there’s something on it now. Something that wasn’t there when I left.
Writing.
Red paint – or something that looks like paint – smeared across the boards in uneven letters. The handwriting is crude, childish almost, like someone writing with their non-dominant hand or in the dark… or both.
My mouth hangs open as I read the horrific message:
I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME