The telltale sound of the guest door squeaked, and I sat up straight, instantly alert. I’d been up for the last three nights listening for Kate. This was the first I’d heard anything. I held my breath, as if hearing me breathe might signal that I was awake, and she’d chicken out and go back to her room. Old houses were unforgiving, no matter how sneaky you were, and there was almost no way to keep the second-to-the-last stair from making noise. As if on cue, I heard it, which was my signal to get out of bed.

I stood by our bedroom door for a few minutes, forcing myself to give her enough time to start making her call. Hopefully she would be listening harder to whoever was on the other end of the line than she would be for me. I opened the door and slid along the wall, where it was the quietest. I made my way to the top of the stairs and inched down them, holding my breath again. There was no mistaking the sound of hushed and frantic whispering coming from the kitchen. I skipped the squeaky step and walked into the kitchen to see Kate standing in the same spot she’d been before, with the phone up to her ear.

“I—” Kate froze midsentence, then quickly slammed the receiver back into its place. “Meredith, hi.”

“I knew you were talking to someone,” I said. There was no denying she was caught this time.

She shook her head and tried to feign innocence. “I wasn’t talking to anyone.”

“Are you kidding me?” I pointed to the phone. “I just walked in on you hanging it up.”

“I wasn’t. I don’t know what you thought you saw.” She tried to shuffle past me, but I blocked her path with my body, putting my hands on my hips.

“I know exactly what I saw.” She wasn’t getting off that easy.

She quickly reached out and pushed me aside before stepping around me. She turned to look at me over her shoulder as she walked away. “And even if I was talking on the phone, it would be none of your business.”

I hurried after her and grabbed her arm as she was about to put her foot on the step. “We’re not done with this conversation,” I said as she turned around. There was no mistaking the anger in her face. People only got angry when they were caught doing something wrong. I waved the phone records in front of her. “You see this? It’s a list of calls made from the phone in the kitchen during the last month, and guess what? There hadn’t been a call made in the middle of the night until you moved in with us.”

She jerked away from me. “Leave me alone. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”