Chapter 8 - The Shadow at the Window
The sound was distinct. Heavy, slow footsteps pacing the length of the kitchen directly over the basement vault.
Then came the smell.
It wasn't acetone anymore. It was gasoline.
A cold terror, sharper than any blade, pierced through my chest. Evelyn hadn't come back to collect her jewelry or retrieve legal documents. She had come to fulfill the promise written in the spidery ink of her diary. She was burning the evidence—and the house—to the ground, intending to claim that an electrical fire had destroyed the property while she was "safely" in her hotel room.
I shoved the red diary into my jacket, grabbed my phone, and hit the emergency speed dial for Detective Lin.
"Lin," I hissed into the receiver before she could even say hello. "She’s at the house. 42 Meadow Lane. She’s pouring accelerant right now. Send the precinct and the fire department. Now!"
"David, get out of there!" Lin shouted through the speaker. "The monitor pinged a perimeter breach five minutes ago! We’re three miles out! Do not engage her!"
I didn't answer. I hung up the phone and shoved it into my pocket.
If I ran out the bulkhead, she would strike a match, drop it, and disappear into the night before the cruisers arrived. The evidence in this basement—the cell, the cot, the rules—would be reduced to cinder and ash in ten minutes. The truth would die in the flames.
I moved silently up the basement stairs. The door leading into the kitchen was cracked open an inch. Through the gap, I saw her.
Evelyn was wearing a black raincoat, her blonde hair tucked beneath a dark beanie. She was systematically sloshing the contents of a five-gallon red plastic fuel container across the hardwood floors, over the dining room table, and directly onto the upholstered couch where Lily used to sit to watch her morning cartoons.
Her face was illuminated by the pale streetlights filtering through the blinds. She wasn't crying. She wasn't panicking. She was humming a lullaby—the same lullaby she used to sing to Lily when she was an infant. A terrifying, vacant smile was stretched across her lips.
"It’s going to be so clean, David," she murmured aloud to the empty room. "Everything clean. Everything quiet."
She reached into her raincoat pocket and pulled out a brass storm-proof lighter.
Her thumb clicked the wheel. A high, blue flame flared to life.
I didn't think. Every instinct honed over eight years of being a father—of guarding, protecting, and standing between my child and the dark—surged into my limbs.
May you like
I kicked the kitchen door open with a thunderous roar.
***
