Chapter 1 - The Apartment That Went Dark
At 2:17 in the morning, my seven-year-old daughter called 911 because I had disappeared.
For almost forty minutes, everyone in our apartment building assumed I had simply abandoned my children.
They were wrong.
Emily sat on the living-room floor in her light-blue pajamas with my old emergency phone pressed against her ear. Her four-year-old brother, Leo, was curled against her side beneath a blanket.
The apartment was completely dark.
“Mom said never open the door,” Emily whispered to the dispatcher. “But she never came back.”
Leo began crying again.
Emily pulled him closer.
The dispatcher asked her to look through the window.
“Do the other apartments have power?”
Emily climbed onto the sofa.
Across the courtyard, porch lights glowed. Hallway fixtures burned normally.
“Everybody does.”
Only Apartment 4C was dark.
That changed the call.
Eight minutes later, Officer Daniel Mercer reached the fourth floor.
Emily still refused to unlock the door.
“My mom made me promise.”
Daniel didn’t force her to break that promise.
Building management provided an emergency key.
“Emily,” Daniel called through the door, “take your brother into the bedroom. Stay away from the entrance.”
The lock turned.
Daniel entered with his flashlight raised.
Nothing looked immediately violent.
A cereal box sat open.
Two plastic bowls were on the table.
A child’s cup rested beside the sink.
Then Daniel opened the electrical panel.
The main breaker had been deliberately switched off.
He turned.
On the kitchen table sat my wallet.
My keys.
And my phone.
Ninety-three percent battery.
Emily appeared in the hallway clutching Leo’s hand.
“Did your mother normally leave without those?”
She shook her head.
“She went outside because somebody knocked.”
“A stranger?”
Emily hesitated.
“A man.”
Then her face tightened.
“I heard Mommy scream my name.”
Daniel immediately looked toward the open apartment door.
Across the hallway, another door opened.
Mrs. Carter stepped out wearing slippers and a gray robe.
“I heard them arguing,” she admitted. “I recorded some of it.”
She held her phone.
But when Daniel reached for it, Mrs. Carter looked at Emily.
Her face drained of color.
“Sweetheart…”
Emily stared back.
“How did you know it was a man?”
Silence.
Emily’s expression changed.
Then Leo pointed toward the dark bedroom.
“He’s not a man.”
Everyone froze.
A floorboard creaked.
Daniel slowly raised his flashlight.
Emily grabbed his sleeve.
“Mom told me his real name before she disappeared.”
“What name?”
Emily opened her mouth.
Before she could answer, something slid beneath the bedroom door.
A white envelope.
Daniel stared at it.
Written across the front were three words:
FOR OFFICER MERCER.
May you like
Daniel’s flashlight trembled.
Because nobody in that apartment was supposed to know which officer would answer the call.
