Chapter 13 - The Knock at Midnight
A torrential November storm battered Oakridge that night, bringing with it freezing rain, howling winds, and cracked branches that littered the dark roads.
Inside the estate, the nursery was warm and quiet. I stood over Maya’s crib, watching her chest rise and fall in the soft amber glow of the nightlight. For the first time in months, the heavy, suffocating anxiety that had weighed on my chest was entirely absent.
The divorce was final. The locks were new. The legal barriers were impenetrable.
At eleven-forty-five p.m., the power suddenly flickered.
The crystal chandelier in the hallway dimmed, flared brightly, and then snapped off, plunging the house into absolute darkness. Seconds later, the low hum of the emergency backup generator kicked in downstairs, restoring faint, amber-hued pathway lights along the baseboards.
I walked down the grand staircase toward the kitchen to check the perimeter control panel. Outside, the wind screamed through the bare branches of the oak trees, sounding like human wails.
I glanced at the security terminal by the kitchen island.
*Main Gate Sensor: Offline.*
*North Perimeter Fence: Circuit Interrupted.*
A cold chill, sharp and visceral, ran down my spine.
"Thomas?" I called out softly toward the rear security office near the mudroom.
No answer. Only the dull roar of the storm outside.
I moved quickly toward the landline mounted on the wall to call the private security emergency line, but before my fingers could reach the receiver, three violent, frantic pounds hammered against the heavy glass of the back patio doors.
*BANG. BANG. BANG.*
I gasped, retreating toward the kitchen counter, my hand closing around the heavy handle of a chef's knife.
In the faint, amber glow of the emergency lights, a soaked, disheveled figure was pressed desperately against the glass.
It wasn't Julian.
It was Chloe.
Her clothes were shredded and drenched in mud. Her face was bruised, her lip split and bleeding, and her eyes were wide with a terror so profound it turned her skin translucent in the rain.
Seeing me, she slammed both palms against the glass, screaming hysterically, her voice barely penetrating the thick glass against the howling wind:
May you like
"Elise! Open the door! Oh God, please open the door! He’s going to kill us! He’s already inside the grounds!"
And in the pitch-black darkness of the tree line fifty feet behind her, a pair of headlights flickered on, cutting through the freezing rain like two predatory eyes.
