Chapter 1 - THE HOUSE EVERYONE FEARED
Six hours earlier, Ashley Carter sat at the kitchen table drawing a picture of her family.
The house was small and old, built at the edge of Bellmere where the paved road became gravel and the gravel road disappeared into forest. Paint peeled from the porch railings. One window had been covered with plywood after a storm. The roof leaked above the upstairs hallway whenever it rained too hard.
To the neighbors, the Carter house looked neglected.
To Ashley, it was home.
She used a blue crayon to draw the walls because she had lost the brown one. She drew yellow squares for windows and a crooked chimney with gray smoke. Beside the house, she drew herself holding her father’s hand.
Her father was much taller than she was, so his head reached almost to the top of the paper.
She gave him a smile.
Andrew Carter rarely smiled anymore, but Ashley remembered what it looked like.
He was standing at the kitchen counter, reading a letter for the third time.
“Daddy?”
Andrew quickly folded the letter.
“Yes, birdie?”
“Do you like my picture?”
He turned around.
For one brief moment, the tension left his face.
“I love it.”
“You didn’t look.”
Andrew crossed the kitchen and knelt beside her chair. His knees cracked as he lowered himself. At thirty-seven, he looked older than he was. A pale scar ran from his left temple to his jaw. Another disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt.
He studied Ashley’s drawing carefully.
“What’s this?”
“That’s our house.”
“And this giant with the terrible hair?”
“That’s you.”
“My hair doesn’t look like that.”
Ashley smiled.
“It does in the morning.”
Andrew gave her a wounded expression.
She giggled, but the laugh turned into a cough.
At first it was small.
Then it deepened.
Ashley bent forward, pressing both hands against her chest.
Andrew was instantly alert.
“Easy. Slow breaths.”
He reached for the inhaler on the table and shook it.
Empty.
His face changed.
Ashley noticed.
“Is it broken?”
“No.”
“You said there was more.”
“I thought there was.”
She tried to breathe normally, but a faint whistle came from her lungs.
Andrew touched her forehead.
Too warm.
The fever had returned.
He stood and opened the medicine cabinet. One bottle of children’s fever reducer remained, but when he tipped it upside down, only a few drops fell into the plastic cup.
The storm had begun an hour earlier. Rain tapped against the kitchen windows with increasing force.
Andrew looked toward the darkening road.
Bellmere Pharmacy closed at nine.
It was already 8:06.
He could make it there in twenty minutes if the bridge remained open.
He took his wallet from the drawer.
Ashley watched him.
“You’re leaving?”
“Only for a little while.”
“But you said the storm was dangerous.”
“It is.”
“Then don’t go.”
Another cough shook her body.
Andrew crouched in front of her.
“You need medicine.”
“I can wait.”
“No, you can’t.”
Her lower lip trembled.
“What if the lights go out?”
“I’ll bring a lantern.”
“What if someone comes?”
Andrew’s gaze shifted toward the front window.
A dark sedan had been parked near the tree line earlier that afternoon. It disappeared when he walked toward it, but not before he saw the driver.
Or thought he saw him.
Andrew had spent the past five years wondering whether memory could turn fear into a face.
Tonight he had seen that face again.
He reached into the drawer and removed an old prepaid phone.
“Keep this with you. My number is the first one.”
“You told me not to use that phone.”
“Tonight is different.”
“Why?”
Andrew hesitated.
Because someone had left a dead bird on their porch three days earlier.
Because the locks on the back door had been scratched.
Because the letter he had just received contained a photograph of Ashley sleeping in her bedroom.
Because someone had written one sentence beneath the photograph.
YOU CANNOT HIDE HER FOREVER.
But Andrew could not tell his daughter any of that.
“Because of the storm,” he said.
Ashley studied him with the careful seriousness that often made him forget she was only seven.
“Are you scared?”
“No.”
“You touch your scar when you’re scared.”
Andrew lowered his hand.
He had not realized his fingers were resting against the scar on his cheek.
“I’m being careful.”
“That means yes.”
He took her small hands in his.
“Listen to me. Lock the door after I leave. Don’t open it for anyone.”
“Not even Mrs. Bell?”
“Not even her.”
“Not Officer Natalie?”
Andrew paused.
Natalie Brooks had been one of the few people in town who treated him like a human being. She had helped search for Ashley’s missing dog the previous winter. She had quietly ignored three expired registration tickets on Andrew’s truck. She had once stopped a group of teenagers from throwing bottles at his fence.
But Andrew trusted no one completely.
“Call me first,” he said.
Ashley nodded reluctantly.
“And stay away from the windows.”
“Because of the storm?”
“Yes.”
It was another lie.
Andrew hated how easily lies came to him now.
He wrapped Ashley in a blanket and helped her onto the living room sofa. He placed the phone beside her, checked the door locks twice, and turned on the television to drown out the thunder.
Before leaving, he returned to the kitchen.
The letter lay beneath a stack of unpaid bills.
He stared at it.
Then he slipped it into the hidden compartment under the floorboard near the pantry.
If something happened to him, the police might never find it.
But if he carried it, the man in the dark sedan might take it.
Andrew replaced the floorboard and stood.
Ashley called from the living room.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Promise you’ll come back?”
Andrew walked to the sofa and kissed her forehead.
“I promise.”
“You always say promises matter.”
“They do.”
“Even in storms?”
“Especially in storms.”
Ashley reached up and touched the scar on his cheek.
“Then come back fast.”
Andrew forced himself to smile.
“I’ll race the rain.”
He put on his brown jacket and stepped outside.
Across the road, hidden behind the curtain of water, a pair of headlights came on.
Andrew stopped.
The lights remained still.
May you like
Watching.
Then they went dark.
