On the phone, Mark must have heard her choked gasp. “Kayla? What’s happening?”
Before she could form a word, the footsteps began again—moving away this time, back down the hall, through the living room. Then came the sound of the front door opening. Not a kick or a crash. A simple, normal turn of the knob and the familiar groan of its hinges. Then it clicked shut, softly, as if closed with careful consideration.
“He left,” she whispered, disbelief flooding her system. “He just… walked out the front door.”
“Stay where you are,” Mark commanded. “Do not come out. I’m turning onto your street.”
She heard his car screech to a halt, the slam of his door, and then his footsteps pounding up the porch steps. The front door opened again. “Kayla! Tommy!”
“In here!”
The bathroom lock turned, and the door flew open. Mark stood there, filling the doorway, his face pale, a heavy flashlight in his hand. His eyes swept over them, checking for injury, before darting down the empty hall. He didn’t ask if she was sure. He just believed her.
“Which way did he go?” Mark asked, his voice low and urgent.
“I don’t know. I just heard the door.”
Mark moved to the front window, peering out through the edge of the curtain. The street was empty and still. He turned back, his expression grim. “Call the police. Now. Tell them everything. I’m going to check the attic lock.”
“Mark, don’t go up there alone—”
“Just make the call,” he said, already heading for the stairs, the heavy flashlight raised like a club. Kayla, with Tommy clinging to her, dialed 911 with numb fingers, her eyes fixed on the staircase, waiting for a cry, a crash, any sound at all from above.
While she waited, Mark’s earlier words from the phone replayed in her mind. “A man. In our bedroom. He was just… standing there in the middle of the room. Not moving. Just listening.” A cold wave of nausea washed over Kayla. The feeling of being watched, the faint noises—it hadn’t been her imagination. It had been real. All of it.