She took one step closer.
Before she could read the screen, the phone vibrated again.
This time there was no text.
It was a photo.
A photograph of our house.
Taken from across the street.
And in the upstairs window behind the glass, someone was standing inside.
The police had already cleared that room.
Ellis grabbed her radio.
The officers moved toward the stairs.
I stayed where I was for one second longer, staring at the photograph.
Then I noticed the person in the window wasn’t looking toward the street.
They were looking directly at Violet’s bedroom door.
And beside them, barely visible in the darkness, was another figure.
There had been two people in the house.
The robbery story was gone.
What remained was a question much more personal.
Who had Violet trusted enough to let them inside?
