5. Patterns in Dust #4
My heart rate quickens. Reported by who? About what, specifically? But I step aside with a gesture that I hope conveys nothing but cooperative innocence. “Of course. I was just making tea.”
This is an absolute fucking lie, but it gives me something to do with my hands as I lead him toward the kitchen.
Part of me wants to show him the library, point out the too-perfect arrangements—proof I’m not crazy—while another part wants to keep my watcher’s existence secret, protected.
Officer Peck follows, his gaze gliding across the entryway with professional assessment.
I watch him notice everything, the water mark on the ceiling from last night’s storm, the slight gap in the panel Rafe showed me.
My fingers tremble as I fill the kettle, torn between wanting him to see the evidence and needing him to leave before he scares away whatever, whoever, has claimed this house alongside me.
“Beautiful old place,” he comments, settling his substantial frame onto a kitchen chair that groans in protest. “Been in your family long?”
“Technically generations,” I answer, measuring loose tea into the infuser. “But I rarely visited as a child. My parents were… mostly estranged from this side of the family.” The words taste bitter, reminders of fault lines I’ve spent years trying not to fall into.
He nods, jotting something in his notebook. “And you arrived, what, two weeks ago?”
“Ten days.” The detail in my answer surprises even me. I’ve been counting, marking time like a prisoner scratching days into a cell wall.
“Noticed anything unusual since you moved in? Strange noises? Unexplained events?” His tone is relaxed, but the pen suspends with purpose above the paper.
The kettle whistles, saving me from having to answer right away.
I tip the steaming water into the teapot, watching the leaves unfurl and bleed colour.
What would I even say? That dust rearranges itself when I’m not looking?
That someone hides in my walls and watches my every move?
That last night, a stranger performed emergency roof repairs during a thunderstorm?
Any one of these admissions would earn me either a psychiatric evaluation or a starring role in local ghost stories for generations to come.
“It’s an old house,” I say finally, placing a steaming mug before him. “It makes all the sounds you’d expect. Settling. Creaking. The usual haunted mansion soundtrack.” I attempt a laugh, but it comes out more like a nervous hiccup.
Officer Peck doesn’t smile. His eyes flick to the doorway, then back to me. “Mind if I look around? Just procedure.”
“Sure,” I say, though all instinct screams at me to refuse, to tell the nosy fucker to leave. “What exactly are you looking for?”
I follow him from room to room, anxiety climbing up my spine with each threshold we cross. In the library, he pauses, noting the meticulously arranged books on my desk, the perfectly centred teacup on the mantel.
“You’re quite organized,” he observes, running a finger down the exact line where my journal meets the desk edge.
I force a smile. “I have my moments.” The lie tastes metallic.
My fingers twitch with the urge to confess that an hour ago, I’d been squatted in the linen closet, heart hammering against my ribs, while something, someone, moved through this very room.
That I’d emerged to find every object on my desk aligned with geometric perfection, as if measured with instruments no human hand could wield with such thoroughness.
He moves to the window, examining my camera with the thorough scrutiny of someone who knows he’s missing something but can’t identify what. “Another person’s gone missing in town,” he says abruptly, the change of subject so jarring I nearly stumble. “Third instance this year.”
His words sink into me like a pebble through dark water, each implication deeper than the last. “Missing?” The word escapes me as barely more than a breath.
Officer Peck turns to face me, his jaw working before he speaks.
“Maria Guthrie,” he says, then stops, rubs at his temple.
“Lived alone at the edge of town.” His eyes flick to mine, then away.
“Neighbour checked on her after not seeing her for three days. The house was empty, the bed made, the dishes washed.” He shakes his head.
“Part of me wants to believe she just left, you know? But…” His voice hardens.
“No sign of struggle. No note. Just… gone.”
I swallow hard, a ball forming where words should be.
“That’s… terrible,” I finally manage. My voice comes out thin, stretched between genuine shock and something more guarded.
Officer Peck’s shoulders tense, and I feel his suspicion like a concrete current between us.
I straighten my back even as something in me wants to shrink away.
“I’m not sure I understand the connection to my house,” I say, the words careful, measured.
Our eyes meet, and the wordless accusation hangs in the air like haze neither of us will acknowledge.
He talks over me, voice flat but eyes alert.
“Three people gone since you moved in. Thomas Webb disappeared first, nothing but an empty truck at the crossroads, engine still warm. Then Ellen Mercer. One minute she’s tending her garden, the next…
” He gestures emptiness with his hand. “Just garden clippers in the dirt and lemonade going warm in the sun. Now Maria.” He leans forward slightly, the space between us shrinking.
“Quite the welcome party this town’s throwing for its newest resident, don’t you think? ”
My face burns as I draw myself up to full height. “Officer, I’ve been lost trying to find the grocery store three times this week. I wouldn’t know Thomas Webb from the mailman, and I couldn’t tell you where Ellen Mercer lived if my inheritance depended on it. You can’t actually be suggesting—”
“Not suggesting anything,” he cuts in, but his tone implies otherwise. “Just noting the timing. Small towns observe patterns, Miss Hale. And newcomers tend to stand out, especially when they inherit houses with… histories.”
A chill sweeps through the room without warning, as if someone had thrown open a door to winter.
My skin prickles underneath my sweater, and when I exhale, a cloud forms between us.
The officer’s next words hang suspended in the suddenly frigid air, crystallizing before they reach me.
I wrap my arms around myself, fingers burrowing into my sleeves, as fury rises inside me, a heat that refuses to warm the space his accusations have hardened to ice.
A ripple passes through Officer Peck’s stance, shoulders drawing up, spine straightening. His fingers find the buttons of his uniform jacket, fumbling to close them as tiny bumps pepper the skin of his forearms. His eyes narrow at the impossible cold.
His breath catches, visible now in the air separating us. “Christ almighty,” he whispers, scanning the corners of the room like a man who’s just felt something brush against his ankle in deep water.
My own surprise mirrors his, but I force my expression into careful neutrality.
How dare you come into my home and accuse me of…
what? Murder? Kidnapping? “Happens sometimes,” I lie, watching his breath crystallize in the suddenly frigid air.
Fuck you and your small-town suspicions.
“Old houses have… quirks.” My fingers clench around the leather journal I don’t remember picking up, my knuckles bleached with strain.
I hope you feel it too. This house is choosing sides.
His boot heel catches on the rug as he retreats a step, his jaw working beneath stubbled skin.
Frost forms on the edges of his mouth when he finally speaks.
“This isn’t over, Miss Hale,” he says, each syllable floating in the air like tiny ice crystals.
“People don’t just vanish without someone knowing something. ”
I nod, eager for him to leave, to take his suspicions and his questions with him.
Fuck you and your small-town paranoia, I think, watching frost melt from his moustache.
Who appointed you the Disappearance Detective anyway?
“Of course,” I say with practised politeness. " I want to help however I can.”
We walk to the front door, and with each stride away from the library, the air warms. By the time we reach the porch, Officer Peck isn’t breathing out visible clouds anymore, but he’s watching me more carefully than before, eyes narrowed and suspicious.
He pauses at the threshold, one hand on the door frame. “I’d keep everything locked up tight if I were you,” he says, his voice holding an edge that suggests he’s not concerned for my safety. “We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow.”
“Don’t worry about me, Officer,” I reply, my smile not quite reaching my eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”
From the doorway, I watch him march to his cruiser like he’s got a stick up his ass.
Just before getting in, he turns and stares at the house—at me—like I’ve got “SERIAL KILLER” tattooed across my forehead.
Great. Officer Small Town thinks the new girl is snatching his neighbours.
Three whole people gone, and somehow I’m suspect number one despite barely knowing where the grocery store is.
As his cruiser disappears down the driveway, I slam the door and bang my head against it.
Great. Just great. Three people have gone missing since I’ve moved in, and now I’m the town’s prime suspect.
Add that to my growing list of problems: a house with secret passages I didn’t ask for, some invisible roommate with OCD who can’t stop touching my things, and apparently the ability to turn rooms into freezers when I get pissed off.
What’s next? Spontaneous combustion when I’m horny?