a tight, tortured knot. But Evan wasn’t there.
I checked the kitchen. The linoleum was cold beneath my bare feet. The digital clock on the microwave glowed 1:12 AM. The house felt entirely too quiet, like a tomb holding its breath.
As I turned to head back toward the stairs, a detail caught the corner of my eye that made my breath catch in my throat.
A thin, razor-sharp line of yellow light was spilling out from underneath Emma’s bedroom door.
Emma’s door was always kept shut at night, clicked firmly into its latch to block out the streetlamps outside. But right now, it was ajar by about two inches. And from within that narrow crack, absolute silence emanated—no tossing, no turning, no murmuring about the man with the long fingers. Just a dead, suffocating stillness.
I walked toward the door on silent
