PART 2
"He's Not on a Business Trip."
For one frozen second...
Neither of us moved.
I stared at the deadbolt.
Penelope stared at me.
Then—
Knock.
Three slow knocks echoed through the front door.
Not loud.
Not impatient.
Almost... polite.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
"Mommy..." Penelope whispered.
"Don't answer."
Another knock.
Then a man's voice drifted through the wood.
"Mrs. Collins?"
I didn't recognize it.
"We're here from the gas company."
Gas company?
I frowned.
We hadn't scheduled anything.
"We need to inspect a reported leak."
My phone was already in my hand.
I searched my email.
Nothing.
No appointment.
No notice.
No emergency alert.
The man knocked again.
"It'll only take a few minutes, ma'am."
Penelope shook her head so hard her ponytail bounced.
"That's not the same voice."
"What?"
"The man Daddy talked to."
Every instinct inside me screamed.
I quietly backed away from the front door.
"Come with me."
We slipped into the hallway without making a sound.
Another knock.
This one harder.
"Mrs. Collins?"
I opened the security camera app on my phone.
Loading...
Loading...
Then the screen appeared.
A man wearing a gas company uniform stood on our porch.
Clipboard.
Reflective vest.
Company cap.
Everything looked official.
But something was wrong.
There was no utility truck.
Only a black SUV parked across the street.
Engine running.
Dark windows.
I zoomed in.
The logo on the man's shirt looked blurry.
Like it had been ironed on that morning.
He glanced toward the SUV.
Almost like he was waiting for instructions.
A cold wave rolled through me.
I pressed the emergency call button.
No signal.
I looked again.
No Service.
That had never happened in our neighborhood.
I tried texting my sister.
Message failed.
Penelope tugged my sleeve.
"The Wi-Fi."
I opened the settings.
Disconnected.
The router lights in the living room were dark.
Someone had cut our internet.
Another knock.
Louder.
"Mrs. Collins, if you don't answer, we'll have to let ourselves in for safety reasons."
My blood ran cold.
"They can't do that," I whispered.
"They can if they're not really from the gas company."
I grabbed Penelope's hand.
"The back door."
We hurried through the kitchen.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
I reached for the handle.
Locked.
I frowned.
I knew I had unlocked it after Bryce left.
I turned the lock again.
Nothing.
The handle wouldn't move.
It had been jammed from the outside.
A shadow passed across the kitchen window.
Someone was in the backyard.
Penelope let out the tiniest gasp.
I slowly lowered us beneath the window.
We crouched together on the tile floor.
Footsteps crunched across the gravel patio.
One person.
No...
Two.
A man's voice came from outside.
"Front's covered."
Another answered.
"Back's covered."
My heart stopped.
They weren't trying to get in.
They were making sure we couldn't get out.
Penelope buried her face against my shoulder.
"What do we do?"
I forced myself to think.
Bryce had planned this.
He'd left smiling because he believed we would never make it out of this house.
That meant...
He hadn't gone on a business trip.
He was making sure he had an alibi.
I looked around the kitchen.
No signal.
No internet.
Every exit blocked.
Then my eyes landed on something I'd forgotten even existed.
An old landline phone mounted on the pantry wall.
Bryce hated it.
He'd wanted to throw it away years ago.
I never let him.
Slowly...
Carefully...
I lifted the receiver.
There was a dial tone.
Relief washed over me.
I started dialing 911.
One digit.
Two.
Three—
Before I could press the final number...
The line went dead.
A man's voice suddenly came through the receiver.
Calm.
Almost amused.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Emily."
My blood turned to ice.
He knew my name.
May you like
Then he said the one thing that made me realize this nightmare had started long before this morning.
"Bryce says hello."
