“Do not open the door,” I said.
Mr. Peterson did not answer immediately.
Through the phone, I heard a faint knock.
Three measured taps.
Then Dererick's voice, muffled by distance.
“Mr. Peterson?”
My whole body went cold.
“Are you inside?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Door locked?”
“For now.”
“For now?”
Peterson breathed out.
“He knows I'm here, Anna.”
“That doesn't mean you open it.”
Clare was already beside me, listening. Jonah turned from the computer and looked toward us. I put the call on speaker.
Another knock.
This time harder.
“Mr. Peterson,” Dererick called. “I just need to ask you something.”
Peterson gave a dry little laugh.
“That's never a promising sentence.”
“Stay away from the windows,” Clare said.
“I am.”
I looked at Jonah.
“Call Detective Morales.”
He was already reaching for his phone.
I went back to Peterson.
“Can you get to the back door?”
“Yes.”
“Is your yard fenced?”
“Chain-link. Gate sticks.”
“Can you leave without Dererick seeing?”
“Probably not.”
Probably.
I hated the word.
From outside Peterson's house, Dererick called again.
“I know Anna spoke to you.”
Every person in Jonah's office went still.
The calmness in Dererick's voice was worse than shouting.
Peterson whispered, “Well, there it is.”
“Don't answer him.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Then a new sound came through the phone.
Metal scraping.
Peterson stopped breathing.
“What was that?” I asked.
“Side gate.”
Dererick had moved around the house.
Clare grabbed my arm.
“Police.”
Jonah nodded.
“They're dispatching someone.”
“How long?”
“They wouldn't say.”
Of course they wouldn't.
I pressed the phone closer.
“Mr. Peterson, listen. Go to the back of the house. Lock yourself in a room if you have to.”
“No.”
“What?”
“If I go upstairs and he comes inside, I trap myself.”
The old man was right.
I could picture his house almost perfectly. Front hall. Living room. Kitchen in back. Narrow stairs against the left wall. A downstairs bathroom with no window.
“Kitchen,” I said. “Back door.”
“I've got it.”
The side gate squealed again.
Then stopped.
No footsteps.
No knock.
Nothing.
Silence became its own threat.
“Peterson?”
“Here.”
“Can you see him?”
“No.”
“Don't look.”
“I know.”
The phone picked up another sound.
A faint click.
Peterson whispered something I couldn't understand.
“What?”
“The basement window.”
My stomach tightened.
“Is it locked?”
“Supposed to be.”
Supposed to be.
I wanted to scream.
Dererick had always been helpful around the neighborhood. He had repaired gutters, replaced porch lights, carried boxes into houses. How many properties did he understand from the inside? How many locks had he noticed? How many routines had he learned simply by being useful?
Peterson moved through his kitchen.
I could hear a drawer opening.
Clare looked at me sharply.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Peterson answered, “Getting something.”
“No weapon,” Clare said.
Another pause.
“I'm not charging into battle.”
“Then what?”
“Flashlight.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
Good.
Not good enough.
But better.
Outside the office, hospital staff crossed the corridor with coffee and charts. Their normal movement seemed obscene.
Jonah's second phone was pressed to his ear.
“Police are on the way,” he said.
I returned to Peterson.
“Stay with me.”
The basement window opened.
We all heard it.
A soft metallic scrape followed by the faintest thump.
Someone had entered the house.
Peterson whispered, “That's him.”
Clare put one hand over her mouth.
I said, “Back door. Now.”
Peterson moved.
Floorboards creaked beneath his steps.
Then Dererick's voice came through the phone.
Closer.
“Mr. Peterson?”
My blood froze.
Not outside.
Inside.
Peterson stopped.
He had not reached the door.
“Anna,” he whispered.
“Keep moving.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“He's between me and the back.”
My mind raced through the house layout.
Basement stairs opened near the kitchen.
Of course.
Dererick had come up directly behind him.
“Front door,” I said.
Peterson turned.
A floorboard creaked elsewhere.
Dererick again.
“You don't need to be frightened.”
Peterson's breath became shallow.
“I wasn't until you said that.”
I nearly shouted at him not to answer.
Too late.
Dererick knew exactly where he was.
Footsteps crossed the kitchen.
Peterson moved fast.
The phone jostled against clothing.
Then came a crash.
Clare cried, “Mr. Peterson?”
No answer.
Another impact.
Glass breaking.
Then Peterson's voice, distant.
“Get away from me.”
Dererick said something.
Too low to hear.
Then Peterson shouted, “No!”
The call disconnected.
I stared at the screen.
“No.”
Clare took my shoulders.
“Anna.”
I hit redial.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Jonah spoke into his phone.
“He's inside the house now. Yes. Potential intruder. We heard a struggle.”
I was already moving toward the door.
Clare blocked me.
“No.”
“He's there because of me.”
“He's there because Dererick chose him.”
“I have to go.”
“You'll do what?”
The question stopped me.
“What are you going to do when you get there, Anna? Walk into the house and ask him to stop?”
“I can't sit here.”
“You can stay alive.”
I hated her for being right.
I hated myself more for understanding it.
Jonah grabbed his laptop.
“I'm coming.”
“No,” Clare said.
“If Peterson's hurt, you may need the records immediately.”
We left.
Clare drove.
I sat in the passenger seat with Peterson's silent phone contact glowing on my screen.
Every traffic light felt deliberate.
Every slow car became an insult.
Police sirens appeared behind us two streets from home.
Clare pulled aside.
Two patrol cars passed.
Then a third.
We followed at a distance.
My street was already filling with people.
Neighbors stood on porches.
Peterson's front door hung open.
My house across the street appeared quiet.
Too quiet.
An officer stopped our car.
“Stay back.”
“That's my neighbor.”
“Stay in the vehicle.”
“Is he alive?”
The officer did not answer.
I tried to open the door.
Clare locked it.
“Wait.”
“I can't.”
“You can for thirty seconds.”
Police entered Peterson's house.
Another officer crossed toward mine.
The scene divided itself into two properties connected by one man.
Dererick.
Then Peterson appeared.
Two officers were holding him under the arms.
He was alive.
I pressed both hands against the glass.
Blood streaked one side of his face.
He was walking.
Barely.
But walking.
Clare unlocked the door.
I was out before she could speak.
“Anna!”
An officer moved toward me.
“Ma'am, stay back.”
“That's my neighbor.”
Peterson looked up.
He saw me.
“Anna.”
The officer relented enough to let me approach the ambulance.
Peterson's cheek was cut. One sleeve had torn near the shoulder.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Not much.”
“That looks like much.”
“Window did most of it.”
“Where is Dererick?”
Peterson looked toward my house.
“He left.”
“How?”
“Through the back.”
Before police arrived.
Of course.
He had entered with enough confidence to frighten an old man and left with enough time to avoid arrest.
“What did he want?”
Peterson's expression changed.
“The drive.”
I looked at Clare.
“What drive?”
“The copy you left with me.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did he get it?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
Peterson gave the faintest smile.
“I lied.”
“What?”
“You emailed me the photographs. I wrote the password on paper.”
“Yes.”
“He thought you gave me a physical drive.”
I understood.
Dererick did not know exactly what evidence existed.
That uncertainty had brought him here.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn't know what he was talking about.”
“And?”
“He didn't believe me.”
Peterson touched the cut on his cheek.
“He searched the living room.”
“In front of you?”
“Wasn't asking permission.”
A paramedic guided him toward the ambulance.
Before stepping inside, Peterson grabbed my hand.
“He said something.”
“What?”
“He said you'd make this worse if you kept digging.”
My throat tightened.
“Anything else?”
Peterson nodded.
“He said you weren't the first wife to misunderstand him.”
For a second, the street disappeared.
“What?”
“He said exactly that?”
“Near enough.”
I looked at Clare.
Her face reflected my shock.
First wife.
Dererick and I had been together eight years.
Married six.
He had never told me about another marriage.
Not once.
Police spent the next hour moving between Peterson's house and mine.
Detective Morales arrived.
His exhaustion from earlier had disappeared.
Now he looked focused.
Danger had converted our strange report into something immediate.
“You are not entering your residence,” he told me.
“Dererick may have left evidence.”
“And he may have left something else.”
“What?”
Morales didn't answer.
I understood anyway.
A trap.
A device.
A surprise designed for whoever entered after him.
The thought made my own home unfamiliar again.
“Can you find him?”
“We're trying.”
“He has his car.”
“Vehicle information has been circulated.”
“He could change cars.”
“Anna.”
“I know him.”
Morales studied me.
“No. You know pieces.”
The correction hurt because it was true.
I watched forensic officers photograph Peterson's broken window.
Clare stood beside the ambulance arguing with Peterson about whether he needed stitches.
Jonah remained in the car with the laptop.
I walked over to him.
“Search for marriage.”
“What?”
“In the archive.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Jonah opened the laptop.
He worked through the file index.
No direct result.
Then he searched variants.
Wife.
Spouse.
Wedding.
Marriage.
One old document appeared.
The metadata dated it almost eleven years earlier.
Jonah opened it.
A scanned form.
My knees weakened.
Marriage certificate.
Dererick Hale.
The bride's name was not Anna.
It was Evelyn Mercer.
I had never heard of her.
Clare came up behind me.
“Who is that?”
“I don't know.”
Jonah zoomed in.
The marriage had occurred in another state.
There was no divorce document in the folder.
Only the certificate.
And one photograph.
A woman standing beside Dererick outside what looked like a courthouse.
He was younger.
His hair shorter.
But unmistakably him.
Evelyn looked perhaps thirty.
Dark hair.
Wide smile.
One hand resting against Dererick's chest.
I stared at her face.
“She looks happy.”
Clare said nothing.
Jonah searched the archive for her name.
Nothing.
Then Mercer.
Nothing.
Then initials.
E.M.
A folder appeared.
It contained only four items.
One photograph.
Two documents.
One video.
Jonah hesitated.
“Open it,” I said.
The first document was a schedule.
The second contained medical language.
Clare read it over his shoulder.
Her face tightened.
“What?”
“Sedative references.”
My body chilled.
The same kind of language we had seen in other files.
Jonah clicked the video.
The screen went black.
Then an image appeared.
A bedroom.
Not ours.
A woman lay asleep.
Evelyn.
Dererick entered the frame.
Younger.
Wearing gloves.
Carrying a black bag.
The bag.
Maybe not the exact same one.
But the same kind.
He set up a camera beside the bed.
My hands started shaking.
This had begun years before me.
Perhaps long before.
Jonah paused the video.
“There's more.”
“How long?”
“Forty-six minutes.”
I could not watch forty-six minutes.
I could barely survive ten seconds.
“Skip ahead.”
He dragged the timeline.
Evelyn remained asleep.
Dererick stood beside her.
Another person entered the room.
A man.
His face stayed outside the camera angle.
Only his torso and arms were visible.
Dererick was not alone.
Clare whispered, “There's your other person.”
The messages.
The initials.
The audience.
It had never been only Dererick.
Jonah moved farther ahead.
The second man handed Dererick something.
Then leaned close to the camera.
For one moment, his face entered frame.
Clare recoiled.
I turned toward her.
“What?”
She stared at the screen.
“No.”
“What is it?”
“I know him.”
My heartbeat changed.
“Who?”
Clare looked at me.
“He works at my hospital.”
