Chapter 8
The splintered wood around the front door frame looked raw and pale against the dark paint of the interior wall. Arthur knelt on the welcome mat at dawn, holding a tube of heavy-duty wood filler and a set of steel reinforcement plates he had salvaged from his toolbox. The rain had cleared, leaving behind a cold, gray morning that felt entirely devoid of warmth.
Deputy Vance stood on the porch a few feet away, sipping black coffee from a styrofoam cup, his boots crunching slightly on the damp gravel.
"You're lucky he didn't try to harm anyone," Vance said, his tone grim as he inspected the jagged edges of the broken latch. "This wasn't a random burglary, Mr. Hayes. No electronics were touched. Your wallet was on the kitchen counter, untouched. Someone is deliberately terrorizing your household."
"That's what I've been telling you for forty-eight hours!" Arthur snapped, his voice tight with accumulated rage and lack of sleep. He slammed a hammer against the steel plate to drive a three-inch screw deep into the door frame. "He bypassed my cameras, disabled the living room feed, and walked right into my house while my children were sleeping. This isn't a harassment case anymore. This is stalking with intent to harm."
"I've escalated the file to our detective division," Vance replied evenly, unfazed by Arthur's outburst. "We're pulling every traffic camera within a half-mile radius for last night between midnight and three in the morning. But Mr. Hayes, I need to ask you a difficult question. Has anyone in your family—or Clara, before she passed—had any unresolved disputes, business conflicts, or estranged relationships?"
Arthur paused, the hammer hovering inches from the nail. Clara had been a quiet elementary school teacher, universally loved in the community. He was a remote graphic designer, working from home on corporate branding projects. Their lives were painfully ordinary.
"No," Arthur said firmly. "We lived quiet lives. Clara didn't have enemies. I certainly don't."
"People from the past don't always look like enemies when you know them," Vance noted quietly, scribbling something in a small leather notebook. "Sometimes they're people who watched from a distance, building an obsession out of nothing at all."
May you like
Maya stepped out onto the porch, wrapped in a heavy jacket, her face pale and drawn. She looked at the police officer with eyes that had lost all their childhood innocence. "He's not going to stop until he takes Leo, isn't he?" she asked softly.
Vance looked at the young girl, his professional detachment slipping just enough to reveal genuine sympathy. "We're going to catch him, Maya. We have extra patrols assigned to your cul-de-sac starting right now."
