Chapter 3 - Footsteps in the Hall
The sound of the front door latching shut echoed up the hardwood stairs like a gunshot.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Beside me, Lucy froze, her breath catching in her throat, while Rachel buried her face into my coat, trembling violently.
Arthur.
He wasn't supposed to be back until morning. He must have forgotten something—perhaps his house keys, or a specific document he needed to impress Victoria.
"Stay here," I whispered frantically, pressing the blue linen journal and the flash drive into Lucy’s hands. "If anyone opens this door, climb back out the window and run to the car."
"Grandpa—" Lucy whispered, her eyes wide with terror.
"Go," I hissed.
I slipped out of the studio and into the dimly lit upstairs hallway, pulling the door half-shut behind me. Below, heavy footsteps crunched on the foyer floorboards. I heard a low murmur of voices—a man and a woman. Arthur wasn't alone. Victoria was with him.
"I told you, it's fine," Arthur’s voice drifted up, dripping with casual arrogance. "The old man took the girls without a fight. By tomorrow afternoon, the movers will have cleared out all of Rose's old junk, and we can start fresh. No baggage."
"Are you sure her father won't poke around?" Victoria’s voice replied, smooth and clipped. "Charles always struck me as stubborn."
"Charles is a retired high school shop teacher who spends his days building birdhouses," Arthur laughed, the sound hollow and cruel. "He doesn't know the first thing about corporate restructuring or forensic accounting. He’ll keep the girls fed, complain about the price of groceries, and stay out of our way."
From the shadows of the landing, my hands curled into tight fists. Every instinct in my body screamed to march down those stairs, grab Arthur by the collar of his expensive suit, and throw his lies right back in his face. But I forced myself to stay still. The girls were upstairs. If I caused a scene now, Arthur would call the police, claim I was trespassing, and use the opportunity to legally separate the girls from me entirely.
Then came the sound that made my blood run cold.
"I left my portfolio on the kitchen island," Victoria said. "I'll grab it while you check the mail."
Footsteps began to ascend the stairs.
Not toward the kitchen. Toward the second-floor bedrooms. Toward the studio.
I backed up silently into the narrow recess beside the linen closet, holding my breath. The light switch at the top of the stairs clicked on, illuminating the hallway. Victoria’s heels clicked against the hardwood floor, stopping just a few feet from where I stood in the dark.
I heard her push open the guest room door, then walk down the hall toward the studio.
If she pushed open that studio door, she would see the open window, the empty closet, and Lucy and Rachel huddled inside.
I braced myself to step out, to draw her attention away from the girls at any cost, when her phone suddenly chimed loudly in the hallway.
Victoria stopped. She muttered a curse, pulled out her phone, and answered it.
"What?" she snapped into the receiver, her voice echoing off the walls. "No, Arthur is downstairs. I'll be down in a second. Just send the wire confirmation to my personal account."
She turned on her heel, abandoning her check of the studio, and hurried back down the stairs.
May you like
I let out a shaky breath I hadn't realized I was holding. A minute later, the front door slammed shut again, and the house fell back into an eerie, suffocating silence.
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