He dared a quick glance over his shoulder. His wife leaned precariously over the side of their bed, scrabbling for the phone.

Then she crashed to the ground, taking the bedside lamp with her.

“Salma!”

His heart racing, his hands so sweaty he could barely guide the wheels, he spun away from the door and rushed to the end of the bed.

His wife lay crumpled on the ground. Glass from the shattered light bulb covered her once beautiful black mane of hair, cold and jagged on the translucent skin of her face.

He guided the wheelchair next to her prone body, and leaned toward her.

She didn’t move.

Her chest didn’t move.

Oh, God. Where was the phone?

Then he saw the black receiver—it lay just under the edge of the bedframe. He reached over his wife and snatched the phone.

9 - 1 -

Hell, goddammit, he hit a 2!

His fingers would not stop trembling.

9 - 1 - 1.

He pushed the phone hard against his ear, as if the pressure would force someone to answer.

“911. What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Someone is in my house. And my wife fell—”

His eyes desperately traced her features under its mask of shattered glass.

There was no sign of the fear that had propelled her to the ground.

She looked so serene.

So still.

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

2:08 a.m.

A large thud and the sound of breaking glass startled Harry out of his scotch-induced sleep. He jolted upright, threw the tangle of sheets off his body and leapt out of the twin-sized bed of his childhood. His knees buckled when his feet slammed into the floor. He kept forgetting that he was not sleeping in his own bed. He staggered forward, catching his balance, and ran out of the bedroom.

Later, when questioned by police, he could not say why he hadn’t called down to his parents and asked if everything was all right. After all, his first thought when he had been awoken by the crashing noise was that his father had fallen out of bed.

But instinct kept him quiet.

Or was it memory?

He could barely see over the counter. “Get down!” His father’s urgent whisper was quickly followed by his father’s hand pushing his head down from view. He sat, his knees to his chin, curled into himself like the snail on the mysterious hosta in the garden. But he heard everything. The rage-filled, nasty words the men called his father. His father’s angry response. The gun discharging. Once. Twice. Three times. The gurgled moan from somewhere inside his father’s chest when he collapsed onto the counter. The cash register clanging furiously as the drawer was emptied. Then, frantic footsteps…

Footsteps.

He had heard footsteps. In the living room.

* * *

The light under the door had abruptly disappeared.

Aiden gestured at Leah with his knife. Come on.

She crept toward him.