Chapter 1 - The Fourth Knock Never Came
Three knocks.
Slow.
Evenly spaced.
Then silence.
Ethan stood in the center of the marble foyer with Lily locked against his chest.
Seconds earlier, he had caught his daughter falling through two stories of open air.
His knees still burned from the slide across the marble.
His arms still remembered her weight hitting them.
But none of that frightened him as much as Eleanor’s face now.
“Don’t open that.”
She had not screamed it like a threat.
She had begged.
That difference mattered.
The enormous American flag lay crumpled beneath the hidden steel door. Daylight poured through the atrium windows, making the newly exposed rectangle in the wall look almost absurdly plain.
No handle.
No keyhole.
Only a narrow black keypad beside the frame.
Lily pressed her cheek against Ethan’s shoulder.
“Daddy…”
“I’ve got you.”
He did not take his eyes off Eleanor.
She had pushed herself upright against the wall. One side of her face was reddening from the blow. Her breathing came quickly.
“Who’s in there?”
Eleanor said nothing.
Ethan stepped toward the door.
She moved in front of him.
“Ethan, please.”
He stopped.
Not because he trusted her.
Because Eleanor did not say please.
Not when she fired employees.
Not when she destroyed contracts.
Not when she threatened Ethan with years of custody litigation after their marriage collapsed.
And certainly not after what she had just done to Lily.
Yet now her hands were trembling.
Ethan lowered Lily carefully.
“Stay behind me.”
Lily obeyed instantly, gripping the back of his jacket.
Ethan looked at the keypad.
Four numbers.
A small green indicator.
He reached toward it.
Eleanor caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
Ethan ripped his arm free.
“You threw my daughter off a balcony.”
Something changed in Eleanor’s eyes.
Pain.
Then anger.
Then something Ethan could not identify.
“I know what you saw.”
“I caught what I saw.”
Eleanor flinched.
From behind the steel door came a faint scraping sound.
Ethan turned.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing.
He knocked once against the steel.
“Can you hear me?”
A pause.
Then—
knock.
One.
Ethan looked at Lily.
Lily stared at the door.
He knocked twice.
Two knocks answered.
Lily whispered, “They’re copying you.”
Eleanor’s face drained of color.
Ethan turned sharply.
“You know who that is.”
“No.”
“You know something.”
“Yes.”
The admission came so quickly that it stopped him.
Eleanor looked toward the staircase.
Then toward the front entrance.
As though expecting someone.
“You need to take Lily and leave this house.”
Ethan almost laughed.
“You’re not giving instructions anymore.”
“I’m not trying to control you.”
“That would be a first.”
“Ethan.”
For the first time since he had known her, Eleanor looked smaller than the mansion around her.
“You think the worst thing that happened today was what you saw upstairs.”
His expression hardened.
“It was.”
“No.”
She looked at Lily.
Her voice dropped.
“It was supposed to be.”
Ethan stared at her.
Before he could ask what that meant, Lily tugged his jacket.
“Daddy.”
She was looking down.
A thin line of light had appeared beneath the steel door.
Not white daylight.
Red.
Then something slid slowly through the narrow gap.
A photograph.
Ethan crouched and picked it up.
It showed the same mansion atrium.
The same balcony.
The same enormous flag.
And the same three people.
Ethan.
Eleanor.
Lily.
But the photograph had been taken from above.
From somewhere inside the mansion.
On the back, written in black ink, were six words:
HE CAME HOME EARLIER THAN EXPECTED.
Ethan read them twice.
May you like
His blood went cold.
Because the photograph showed the clothes they were wearing right now.
