No interview.
No employee file.
Nothing.
I hadn’t been hired.
I had been personally requested.
By Alexander Bennett.
Except Alexander insisted he had never seen my name before that day.
Someone had arranged everything.
Someone had known I was desperate.
Someone had known about my children.
Someone had known exactly how to get me inside Alexander’s house.
And someone had been waiting twenty years for us to find each other.
I wanted to leave.
I wanted to take my children and disappear.
But before I could, Alexander stopped me.
“Don’t go.”
I turned around.
“You think I should stay here after everything you’ve just told me?”
“No.”
He looked terrified for the first time.
“I think if you leave this house right now, whoever brought you here will know we’ve discovered the truth.”
I stared at him.
“And if I stay?”
His eyes moved toward the security cameras mounted in the hallway.
“Then we might finally find out who has been watching us.”
That evening, I returned to my apartment.
Brandon was asleep.
Lily was watching television under a blanket.
For a few minutes, everything felt normal.
Then I noticed something on the kitchen table.
A small silver chain.
I froze.
I hadn’t left it there.
I picked it up.
It was identical to Alexander’s necklace.
Except this one had something engraved on the back.
