Chapter 12
The cruiser slowed before the turn to our street. Price raised one hand toward the windshield, and the driver stopped beneath a bare maple. Rain clicked against the roof. Ahead, the dark shape of my house sat behind the flashing lights of two emergency vehicles.
“Stay here,” Price said.
I was already reaching for the door handle.
“Not inside,” he added, meeting my eyes. “Not until we know.”
On my phone, the nursery feed showed a slice of Ruby’s bedroom: the edge of the bed, one curtain, and Vanessa standing so still she might have been part of the furniture. She lifted two fingers to her wrist, then pointed at the camera.
My breath caught.
Vanessa had used that signal for years, ever since she started babysitting Ruby. Two fingers to the wrist meant I’m here. I’m okay. Pointing at the camera meant she knew I could see her.
“She’s alive,” I said.
Price leaned toward the screen. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Vanessa lowered her hand. Her face was pale, but she kept her eyes on the lens. Then she glanced toward the bedroom door.
Price spoke into his radio. “We have a live person in the nursery. Possible hostage. No confirmation on the suspect’s position.”
The word hostage struck harder than the siren outside. I wrapped my fingers around the phone until its edges pressed into my palm.
Price looked at me. “Do you have copies of the recordings?”
I opened the folder on my phone. The two audio files were there, copied after the café while the black phone was in Price’s custody. I selected both and sent them to the secure address he gave me. The progress bar crawled across the screen, stalled, then completed.
A receipt appeared.
Price checked his own device. “Got them.”
“If he takes that phone—”
“He won’t take the copies.”
It wasn’t comfort. It was something better: a fact I could hold.
The fire captain came to the cruiser, rain shining on the shoulders of her jacket. She told Price the house remained unsafe. They had isolated what they could, but nobody could promise what Eric might do if he reached the basement.
“Can you get Vanessa out?” I asked.
The captain looked at me carefully. “We’ll try. You stay outside.”
Price opened his door. “You heard her.”
For one second, the old impulse rose in me—to prove I loved Vanessa by charging toward the danger, to make my own body the price of someone else’s safety. Eric had counted on that kind of reflex. He had spent years making my concern sound like permission.
I let the handle go.
Price stepped into the rain. An officer came around to my side and crouched beside the open window.
“Keep the door locked,” he said. “I’ll stay with you.”
On the screen, Vanessa crouched beside Ruby’s bed. She disappeared from view.
The nursery camera caught a flicker of movement in the hall. Then the live feed froze.
A moment later, the house alarm began to wail.
It came through the phone speaker thin and distorted, but the sound tore right through me. Price and the captain moved toward the side gate with two officers behind them. One carried a heavy flashlight; another kept his radio raised near his mouth.
I watched them pass the porch.
The alarm changed pitch. A door slammed somewhere inside.
Then a woman’s voice rang through the open side entrance.
“Help! I’m in here!”
Vanessa.
I lurched forward, but the officer beside me caught my shoulder—not roughly, just enough to stop me.
“Please,” I said.
“I know.”
He didn’t tell me to calm down. He didn’t tell me she’d be fine. He stayed between me and the open door while the responders vanished into the dark.
The house swallowed their lights.
I stared at the blank feed, thumb hovering over the screen as if I could summon an image by wanting it hard enough. Rain ran down the windshield in trembling threads. On the street, red and blue light washed across the wet pavement, then slid away.
A burst of radio static filled the cruiser.
“Interior team, report.”
Nothing answered.
The alarm stopped.
The silence afterward was so sudden I heard my own breath snag.
Price’s voice came over the radio. “We have the victim’s location. Moving her out.”
My hand flew to my mouth. I had just begun to breathe when the house went black.
The porch light vanished. The front windows lost their faint glow. My security app flashed CONNECTION LOST, and the nursery image disappeared entirely.
The officer beside me swore under his breath.
“Why did the power go?” I asked.
He was already speaking into his radio. “Possible deliberate interruption. Confirm your positions.”
Static answered.
A crash sounded from the side of the house. Not a fall. Not a dropped tool. The blunt, splintering crack of wood giving way.
Price’s voice burst through the radio. “Side door! Suspect moving toward the basement!”
The officer by my window spun toward the house.
“No,” I said, my voice breaking. “He’s going for the heating system.”
No one answered. The radio spat a jumble of voices over one another. In the dark, the house seemed to draw all the light toward itself and keep it.
I climbed out of the cruiser. The officer reached for my arm.
“Ma’am, stay back.”
May you like
I stopped at the curb. My whole body strained toward the door, toward Vanessa, toward the black square of the nursery window. But I did not run. I stayed where the living could still reach me, with the recordings safe and my hands empty.
Then, from inside the dark house, I heard Eric shout Ruby’s name.
