had kissed her forehead.

“I’ll check the clock, the gutters, and the smoke alarm, ma’am.”

She had smiled, but her eyes had not.

Now he lifted the clock from the wall.

The back panel had been forced open and replaced poorly.

One screw was not Claire’s.

Daniel knew because Claire labeled jars of household screws by size.

Whoever cleaned the house had opened the clock.

Whatever Claire had hidden inside was gone.

Daniel leaned his forehead against the pantry door and let the loss pass through him for exactly five seconds.

Then he remembered Claire’s habits.

She never trusted one hiding place.

She called it the grocery-list rule.

One list in your hand, one list in your head, one list on the fridge in case everything else went wrong.

He searched the kitchen again, this time looking for something too ordinary to steal.

The freezer held soup, peas, ice packs, and a loaf of banana bread wrapped in foil.

Claire hated freezing banana bread because it made the edges wet.

Daniel unwrapped it on the counter.

Inside the loaf was a plastic bag.

Inside the bag was a brass key and a folded receipt from Harbor Self-Storage, Unit C-19, paid in cash three weeks earlier.

At the bottom of the bag was a note in Claire’s narrow handwriting.

If I am wrong, tease me forever.

If I am not, trust Priya and no one wearing a Hawthorne smile.

Daniel sat down for the first time since he had entered the house.

Priya Shah was a reporter for the Calloway Ledger, stubborn enough to be disliked by every official in town and careful enough to still be alive.

Claire had shared coffee with her twice that Daniel knew of.

Maybe more.

He photographed the note, sealed it in a clean envelope, and put the original in the inner pocket of his jacket.

Then he heard a floorboard creak in the back hall.

Daniel turned off the flashlight.

The house held its breath.

A shadow moved across the kitchen doorway.

Not large.

Not armed, from the shape of the hands.

Daniel waited until the shadow stepped inside, then reached from behind the pantry door and pinned the intruder gently but completely against the wall.

The man whimpered.

“Owen,” Daniel said.

“Don’t hit me.”

“Give me a reason not to call out your name loudly enough for whoever is outside to hear.”

Owen shook beneath Daniel’s grip.

Rainwater dripped from his hair onto the collar of his expensive sweater.

Without the wall of his family around him, he looked younger than twenty-six.

“I came to warn you.”

“About what?”

“They know about the clock.”

“I noticed.”

Owen swallowed.

“They don’t know about the freezer.”

Daniel did not move.

“You watched them search my house?”

“I watched Reid and Graham.

I didn’t know they were going to hurt her that badly.”

The sentence broke something open in the room.

Daniel’s voice went very quiet.

“That badly.”

Owen squeezed his eyes shut.

“They said they only needed the files.

They said Claire was going to ruin everything.

My father said he would scare her.

That was all.”

“Where did it happen?”

Owen began to cry without sound.

Tears slid down his face, but his mouth stayed pressed shut like a child trying not to be