He walked back to the kitchen. For some reason, his tackle box was out, moved from the rec closet to the floor in front of the dryer, and he wondered if Patty had needed something from it. What could that be, though? The mystery gnawed at him as the girls finished eating and then went off to brush their teeth, and though he thought about calling her back, he decided to wait and ask her in person.

Patty was indeed waiting for them at the real estate office, and Brad gratefully dropped off Sue and Jillian. He’d had the scanner on low, so the girls couldn’t hear it while they chattered away in the back seat, but there’d been a robbery and assault overnight, and he needed to get to the office as quickly as possible. The amount of crime in Montgomery was getting ridiculous. Their little town was turning into a miniature Chicago.

He kissed Sue and Jillian, gave each of them a hug, then handed them off to their Mommy.

It was not until he was driving away that he realized he’d forgotten to ask Patty about the tackle box.

That’s okay, he thought. He’d ask her later.

4

Jen awoke at six to the sound of tapping.

At first she thought someone on the street was having some remodeling done and that construction was starting. Then she thought it might be the woodpecker she’d seen yesterday on the telephone pole behind their house. But she quickly realized that the tapping was not coming from outside.

It was coming from The Room.

A chill passed through her, and Jen instinctively reached for Lane, but his side of the mattress was empty. He was already up and in the bathroom, and as the tapping continued, she got out of bed and stepped into the hallway. The noise was louder here, and she could definitely tell that it was coming from behind the closed locked door of The Room.

The wave of cold that passed over her could have merely been her own physical fear response, or it could have actually come from beneath the doorway to The Room. Either way, it rooted her in place, and in a small trembling voice she called, “Lane?”

“Be out in a minute!” came his reply from the bathroom, and for a moment, the tapping paused.

Then it started again.

She stared at the closed door of The Room. What was in there and how had it gotten into the house in the first place?

It.

She was already thinking of it as “it.”

The tapping continued.

Was something knocking on the door itself, or was there an object within the room that was being struck? It was impossible to tell, but either way, it sounded like wood rather than metal. Definitely not plastic or glass.