Chapter 5 - The Visitor at 1:19 A.M.)
I did not open the door.
Christopher knocked again.
“Natalie, I know you’re awake.”
I moved into the bedroom, picked up Lily, and carried her quietly into the bathroom.
She stirred.
“Mommy?”
“Shh. We’re playing a quiet game.”
I locked the bathroom door.
Then I called 911.
Christopher continued talking outside.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
Every nerve in my body screamed.
Six years ago, that voice had been familiar.
Now it sounded like a stranger using an old disguise.
“Please just talk to me.”
I stayed silent.
“Natalie, your mother lied to me too.”
That made me look toward the front door, even though two walls separated us.
Melissa was still connected on my other phone line.
“Is that him?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
“He wasn’t supposed to know where you lived.”
“He has photographs outside my apartment.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I swear.”
“Then who took them?”
Before she could answer, Christopher spoke again.
“There are things Evelyn never told you.”
Police dispatch asked whether the man had a weapon.
“I don’t know.”
Whether he was trying to enter.
“No.”
Whether I knew him.
“Yes.”
What was our relationship?
“That’s complicated.”
Outside, Christopher lowered his voice.
“I found out about tomorrow three days ago.”
Tomorrow.
Family court.
He knew.
“I told Evelyn I wanted out.”
I pressed the phone against my ear.
The dispatcher told me officers were approaching.
Christopher continued.
“She threatened me.”
That was harder to believe.
My mother manipulated.
Insulted.
Controlled.
But threatened?
“With what?” I called through the door before I could stop myself.
Silence outside.
Then:
“Proof.”
“What proof?”
“You need to ask your sister.”
Melissa whispered, “Don’t.”
That one word told me Christopher was telling at least part of the truth.
“What proof, Melissa?”
No answer.
I moved toward the hallway.
“Christopher, tell me.”
He sounded closer to the door now.
“There was an accident.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Seven.
Before Lily was born.
Before Christopher disappeared.
I knew of no accident.
Then the elevator at the end of the hall opened.
Male voices.
“Police.”
Christopher backed away from my door.
I heard instructions.
Hands visible.
Step away.
Within seconds, the hallway filled with voices.
I stayed locked inside until an officer knocked and identified himself.
When I opened the door, Christopher was standing near the elevator with his hands behind his back.
He looked older.
Thinner.
His dark hair had gray near the temples.
He stared past the officers.
At me.
Then his gaze moved lower.
Toward Lily.
I shifted Lily behind my leg.
Christopher’s face changed.
For one second, his expression contained something like grief.
“Is that…”
“Do not say her name.”
He stopped.
The officer asked whether I wanted Christopher removed from the property.
“Yes.”
Christopher looked desperate.
“Natalie, you need to listen.”
“No.”
“Evelyn is using both of us.”
“Leave.”
“She has documents.”
“I said leave.”
“One of them has your signature.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
The officers exchanged a glance.
Christopher continued quickly.
“A consent form. It says you approved temporary guardianship if you became unavailable.”
“I never signed anything like that.”
“I know.”
“Then why would it have my signature?”
“Because somebody copied it.”
My pulse hammered.
Melissa remained silent on the phone.
I lifted it.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yes.”
“Is it true?”
“I don’t know.”
Christopher laughed bitterly.
“She knows.”
“Shut up,” Melissa snapped through the speaker.
The officer closest to Christopher frowned.
“Sir, you need to go.”
Christopher looked at me one last time.
“Ask her about Mason Creek.”
Melissa made a choking sound.
I froze.
“Mason Creek?”
She hung up.
Christopher was escorted toward the elevator.
I watched him disappear.
Only when the doors closed did I realize my hands were trembling.
Officer Patel, one of the responding officers, remained to take my statement.
When I told him about the earlier police incident at my mother’s house, his expression became serious.
“You should inform the investigating officers about this visit.”
“I will.”
“Do you have somewhere else you can stay tonight?”
I almost said my mother’s house.
The thought was so absurd I nearly laughed.
“My friend’s.”
I called Rachel, a coworker I had known for nine years.
She answered on the second ring.
“Natalie?”
“I need a favor.”
Twenty minutes later, Lily and I were driving toward Rachel’s townhouse.
As streetlights passed over the windshield, I searched Mason Creek on my phone.
It was a rural area forty miles north.
A reservoir.
Hiking trails.
A narrow county road.
I added Christopher’s name.
Nothing.
Melissa.
Nothing.
Evelyn Carter.
Nothing.
Then I remembered my father.
Thomas Carter.
I searched his name with Mason Creek.
One result appeared.
An archived local article dated seven years earlier.
My finger hovered over it.
The headline read:
LOCAL MAN INJURED AFTER LATE-NIGHT CRASH NEAR MASON CREEK
The victim was not my father.
It was a man named Aaron Vale.
Vale.
Christopher’s surname.
I opened the article.
Aaron Vale, twenty-nine, had been found beside a damaged vehicle at 2:14 a.m. He suffered a traumatic brain injury and spent months in rehabilitation.
Police initially investigated a possible hit-and-run.
No driver was charged.
My heart raced as I read the final paragraph.
Authorities stated that the vehicle believed to have struck Vale may have been a dark-colored SUV.
Seven years ago, my mother drove a black SUV.
I called Melissa.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I sent one message.
Was Mom involved in Mason Creek?
A reply arrived forty seconds later.
Not here.
Then:
Do not text about this.
Then:
Natalie, there are things you don’t understand.
I stared at the screen.
A final message appeared.
Dad knew.
My father.
Dead for three years.
The man I had trusted more than anyone in my family.
Dad knew.
At Rachel’s house, I carried Lily inside and put her to sleep in the guest room.
Then I sat alone at the kitchen table until 3:00 a.m.
I thought about my father’s final months.
He had become withdrawn.
He argued with my mother constantly.
Two weeks before he died of a sudden heart attack, he came to my apartment carrying a sealed envelope.
I remembered it clearly now.
He had looked exhausted.
“Natalie, if anything ever feels wrong, don’t ignore it just because it involves family.”
At the time, I thought he was talking about my mother’s temper.
He gave me the envelope.
“Put this somewhere safe.”
I had.
Then grief swallowed the next year of my life.
I never opened it.
At 3:12 a.m., I stood so quickly my chair fell backward.
May you like
The envelope was still in a storage box in my apartment.
And whatever my father had wanted me to know had been sitting there for three years.
