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Rushing into the living room, Aggie gasped.
A light shone through the gap between the bottom of her door and the floor.
Someone was out there.
She ran to the door, checked to make sure it was locked, only it wasn't, and swung open under her hand.
Footsteps were pounding down the stairs.
A shadowy figure illuminated in the dim glow of a flashlight.
Then the flashlight snapped off.
A moment later the footsteps were gone too.
With her heart pounding in her chest, her pulse thumping in her ears, and her legs feeling like Jell-O, Aggie closed the door, locked it, and leaned against it, her vision cloudy with shock as she was forced to admit the truth.
Someone had been inside her apartment while she slept.
August21st
8:03 A.M.
“Come on, Em, answer.”
Chloe Hadden parked her car in front of her older sister’s house. She hadn’t seen or heard from Emily in over forty-eight hours. That wasnotlike her sister. She usually heard from Em at least a couple of times a day. Her sister was bored. She had nothing going on in her life, so she usually called to chat about nothing much in particular and ask when they were next going out.
Only Chloe didn’t have time to just hang out with her sister anymore. They weren’t still teenagers or college students free to come and go as they please. She had a four-month-old baby at home, a fiancé, and a job she loved. Plus, she had a new circle of friends now. Colleagues and friends from her mothers’ group, other women who were juggling babies and careers, other women who she had something in common with, and these days she didn’t have much other than DNA in common with her sister.
They had been close as children, inseparable really. But as they grew older, they grew apart. They were walking down different life paths. While she wanted a family and a job she loved, Emily was content to live off her boyfriends and while away the hours with shopping and parties.
Hurrying up the path—Chloe had to be at work in less than an hour—she just wanted to check her sister was okay and then get off and start her day. She had several meetings, and thankfully her fiancé had taken the baby to daycare today so she could run through some things for her presentation. Part of her wished that she could be a stay-at-home mom and spend her days with Daisy, but another part of her wanted more than just being a mother. The constant swinging between the two was like a war raging inside her. So, she endeavored to be her best at both and focus completely on whichever role she was playing at the time. At work, she was a businesswoman, at home a mommy, she hoped she could balance, or at least juggle the two sides of her life.
Hammering on the front door, she called out, “Emily?”
She waited but there was no answer.
“Emily?” she called again, a little niggle of doubt brewing in her tummy. Banging louder on the door this time, she yelled, “Emily, it’s Chloe, are you in there?”
Still no answer.
The niggle of doubt grew into concern. Chloe fished around in her purse and pulled out a key to her sister’s house. Emily hated for anyone to let themselves into her home, she thought it was bad manners, but this was an emergency. Her sister could be lying in there hurt or sick, unable to get help. Emily hadn’t seemed unwell when they’d last talked on the phone, but something could have come on quickly. Or Emily could have hurt herself, fallen down the stairs or something.
With fumbling hands, she managed to insert the key into the lock and open the door, where she was met with an oppressive silence. The house felt empty. Unnaturally empty. Another horrible thought burst into her mind. What if Emily was dead? She could have broken her neck if she’d tripped down the stairs. Or what if someone had broken in here? An intruder could have raped or robbed her sister and then killed her.
“Emily?” Her voice was shaky this time, her concern growing into panic.
Tentatively, Chloe searched the house. There was no sign of her sister downstairs, and thankfully no sign of her sister lying dead or badly injured at the bottom of the stairs, and she started to doubt herself. She was probably being paranoid. Maybe Emily just needed some time to herself. Or maybe she had finally decided that she wanted to do something productive with her life and her time and was simply busy.
That notion was quickly debunked when she caught sight of her sister’s car parked in the garage. If Emily was out someplace, she wouldn’t have left her car behind. Which reminded her that she’d seen her sister’s keys and purse on a table by the front door. If Emily wasn't here, then it didn’t look like she had left voluntarily.
In a full-blown panic now, Chloe ran up the stairs. “Emily,” she yelled. “Em, are you here? Emily.”
She sprinted for the master bedroom. Even before she reached it, she could see through the open door that the bed was empty. There went her theory that Emily was sick and unable to get help.
The bed was empty, the covers mussed, lying half off the bed and bunched on the floor. Chloe knew that her sister was a hot sleeper and that she had almost definitely thrown the covers off, but she also knew that her sister was obsessed with making her bed. Not just making her bed, but also arranging her couple of dozen stuffed animals, which were currently piled in an armchair in the corner of the room.
There was something on the white sheets. A dark blob of something. Chloe moved forward to get a better look and then froze. It was blood. A small trail of dark red droplets right beneath the pillow.
