Chapter 1 - The Man in the Window
I stood completely frozen in the doorway of the master bedroom.
The silence in the hallway suddenly felt heavier than the briefcase I had just dropped.
Annie shifted her weight, keeping her arms protectively around my two sleeping sons.
She looked at me with eyes that held too much knowledge for a woman hired to scrub floors.
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me.
I asked her what my five-year-old boys could possibly have to tell me.
Annie gently untangled herself from Justin’s grip and laid him softly on the pillows.
She stood up, smoothing her gray apron, and walked toward me until we were inches apart.
She told me that the boys had not been crying for their mother today.
They had been crying because they saw a man standing in the backyard.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
I told her that was impossible, because the estate was surrounded by a ten-foot security wall and heavily guarded.
Annie shook her head and pointed toward the massive bay window overlooking the gardens.
She said Jordan recognized the man.
The boy had told her it was the same man with a scar on his face who had been driving the truck that killed their mother.
A cold wave of absolute terror washed over my entire body.
The police report had clearly stated the truck driver died in the fiery crash on the Saw Mill River Parkway.
If the driver was dead, he couldn't be standing in my backyard fourteen months later.
I turned around and ran down the hallway toward the master security control room.
I punched in my passcode and pulled up the exterior camera feeds from the last three hours.
I expected to see an empty lawn or perhaps a confused gardener.
Instead, every single camera covering the perimeter of the estate showed a completely black screen.
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The footage had not been corrupted by an outside hacker.
The system logs clearly showed the cameras had been manually deactivated from the keypad inside my own kitchen.
