Chapter 13 - The Knock in the Night
Two months later, spring had finally settled over the Hudson Valley.
The suburban house that Daniel had tried to throw me out of was completely empty, its furniture auctioned off, the proceeds donated to a women's legal defense fund Clare had established in my father’s name.
Chloe and I had moved into my father’s old country estate in Dutchess County—a warm, timber-framed house surrounded by apple orchards and stone walls that my father had built with his own hands. The house was peaceful. The nursery was filled with sunlight, and on the high wooden shelf above Chloe's crib sat the antique music box, completely restored, playing its gentle Brahms lullaby in the quiet afternoons.
Daniel and Marcus Sterling were currently being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Brooklyn, awaiting their joint federal trial. Daniel's mother, Evelyn, had vanished to a private villa in Switzerland, thoroughly disgraced and stripped of her board seats.
It was nine o'clock on a Tuesday evening. The rain was drumming softly against the roof of the kitchen, a gentle, soothing sound that finally didn't carry the weight of fear.
I had just put Chloe down to sleep in her crib and was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring a cup of chamomile tea, when the exterior security lights along the gravel driveway suddenly flared to life.
I froze.
The estate was equipped with a state-of-the-art security system installed by the federal marshals, with two private security guards stationed in the gatehouse half a mile down the drive.
My phone buzzed on the counter. It was a text from Agent Vance:
*Rachel, call me immediately. Do not open the doors.*
Before my fingers could unlock the screen, the kitchen lights flickered once, twice, and died completely.
The house was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
The gentle, familiar Brahms lullaby coming from the nursery monitor on the counter suddenly stuttered, distorted, and stopped.
Through the baby monitor’s small digital screen, which was running on backup battery power, I saw the nursery door slowly swing open.
May you like
A tall silhouette stepped into the frame, standing directly over my daughter’s crib.
And then, from the back French doors leading directly onto the dark patio behind me, came three slow, rhythmic, terrifying knocks against the glass.
