Chapter 2 - Don't Touch It Yet
His fingers were a half inch from that round dark knob when I moved.
I didn't think about it. My hand was already around Lily's wrist and I pulled her back a step, hard enough that her white sneakers squeaked on the carpet. Dust was still hanging in the air where he'd hit the wall, little particles floating in the light from the window with the white curtains. Daniel's other hand still held the hammer.
"Don't touch it yet," I said. My voice came out louder than I meant it to.
Daniel didn't turn his head right away. His dust-covered hand hovered there, frozen. Then he looked back at me over his shoulder.
"Vanessa, it's open. We should see what's back there."
Lily pressed into my leg. She'd been clinging to me since he started pushing the wardrobe, and now her fingers were twisted tight in my blouse. The maroon satin had gone damp where she'd been holding it.
"Not with her in here," I said, quieter. "Put that down first."
That was the first real confrontation. Not yelling. Just two people looking at each other across a broken wall in our bedroom, both breathing hard. Daniel's jaw was tight. He was still the man in the white henley who'd just swung a hammer into our own house, and I could see the sweat at his hairline. He finally dropped his hand from the door, but he didn't step away.
He glanced down at Lily. "Lily, honey, did you hear something back there before? Is that why you kept looking over here?"
She nodded against my side, then looked up at me, then at the dark metal. Her voice was very small.
"I heard it at night," she said. "Tapping. Like scratching. Behind the wood thing."
My stomach dropped. The wardrobe. We'd had it against that wall since we moved in. It was so big and heavy we'd never moved it to paint behind it. Lily's room was right next to ours, but she sometimes came in at night and slept on the floor beside our bed.
"Where did you hear it from?" I asked her, trying to keep my voice even. I crouched a little so I was closer to her level.
She pointed with one finger at the broken plaster, at the edge of the black door. "There. At night when it was quiet. I thought someone was in the wall."
Daniel let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but it wasn't funny. "You heard the house settling, sweetie. Old houses make noises."
He said it too quickly. He was still holding the hammer, knuckles white around the wood handle with the black rubber grip.
I stood back up and looked at him. "Did you know this was here?"
He shook his head. "No. I never noticed a door before. How would I? The wardrobe was covering it."
I registered it as a lie the second he said it. Not because his face gave it away in some dramatic way — his expression barely moved. But because he didn't look surprised. When the plaster had cracked open and that matte black surface showed through, his eyes hadn't widened. He hadn't stepped back. He'd just stared at it like he was confirming something, then reached straight for the knob like he'd been waiting to. A person who'd just discovered a hidden door in his bedroom wall would have said something else. Would have asked what it was.
I didn't call him on it in front of Lily. I just held his gaze for a second longer than was comfortable. He looked away first, down at the hammer.
"Daniel, set it down," I said. "We're not opening anything until Lily's out of the room. We need air in here anyway."
He hesitated. I could see he wanted to turn that knob. His whole body was angled toward it, like a magnet. For a moment I thought he was going to argue with me right there with dust still falling.
Then Lily coughed a little from the drywall dust, and that seemed to break it. He exhaled and lowered the hammer slowly and set it down on the carpet beside the tool rack. Not tossed — placed. Carefully.
"Okay," he said. His voice was tight. "Okay. We'll wait."
I took Lily's hand and backed us both toward the doorway, away from the jagged hole and the dark metal door that was still closed. Daniel stayed where he was, standing beside the broken wall, his hands empty now and dusted white, looking at the door and not at us.
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"We're going to step into the hall for a minute," I told Lily, trying to sound calm for her. "Let Daddy breathe a little."
She walked with me, but she kept looking back over her shoulder at the black door until we reached the hall. Daniel didn't follow. I could hear him still standing there in our bedroom, not moving, the tension between us locked in place like that door itself.
