Chapter 3 - The Visitor at the Window
"Get away from the glass," I muttered, my hand instinctively dropping to my side as I pulled Lily gently down from her chair and maneuvered her behind the heavy oak kitchen island, where Martha was already waiting with wide, alarmed eyes.
"Mark, what is it?" Martha hissed, her voice tight with suppressed panic. "Who's out there?"
"Stay here with the kids. Don't make a sound, and don't turn on any more lights," I instructed, my heart thumping a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I crept toward the front hallway, keeping low to avoid the line of sight from the large picture window beside the front door. The dark sedan sat idling at the curb, its silhouette carved sharply against the amber glow of the neighborhood streetlights. No doors opened. No one stepped out. It just sat there, a silent, menacing sentinel watching our house like a predator waiting for its cue.
Then, my own cell phone buzzed loudly in my pocket, shattering the tense silence of the hallway.
I yanked it out, half-expecting it to be Sarah, but the screen displayed an unknown, restricted number. With a quick swipe, I pressed accept and brought the phone to my ear.
"If you want to see your wife alive again," a rasped, distorted voice hissed through the receiver, "you'll take the black phone out of your pocket, walk out onto the front porch, and place it on the hood of the car across the street. You have sixty seconds."
"Who is this?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a dangerous snarl. "What have you done with Sarah?"
"You don't get to ask questions, Mr. Reynolds. You've got files that don't belong to you—well, technically, they belong to your wife's employer, and she was stupid enough to try and steal them back. If you want her walking back through that front door, you'll do exactly as I say. Fifty seconds."
The line clicked dead.
I stood frozen in the dim hallway, the weight of the burner phone burning a hole in my jacket pocket. This wasn't a random burglary or a domestic dispute. Sarah had stumbled into something illicit—corporate espionage, embezzlement, or something far worse—and now the danger had landed squarely on our doorstep.
I looked back toward the kitchen. I could see the edge of Lily’s blanket and Martha’s tense, watchful silhouette standing guard over my children. If I went out there, I was walking blindly into a trap. But if I stayed inside, waiting for the police would take too long, and whoever was sitting in that car clearly had eyes on every exit of our property.
I pulled the burner phone from my pocket and unlocked it one last time. In the split second before the screen locked itself, a new message notification popped up from an encrypted chat thread: Location pin received. If they intercept you at the marina, burn the drive.
My mind raced. Sarah hadn't just been a captive in that motel video; she had been trying to hide something from these people. And whatever she had hidden, she had managed to stash it somewhere else before they caught up with her.
May you like
"Forty seconds," I whispered to myself, repeating the countdown from the caller.
I didn't walk out the front door. Instead, I moved silently toward the back of the house, heading straight for the basement stairs. If they wanted the phone so badly, I was going to give it to them—on my own terms. But first, I needed to know what Sarah had left behind in the one place these thugs hadn't thought to look.
