Chapter 18 - The Empty Bed and the Digital Trail
I didn't answer Miles immediately. My eyes remained locked on Eleanor Vance, who merely raised a single, perfectly sculpted eyebrow as the sound of running footsteps grew louder on the stairs.
"Mom! Where is she?" Miles burst into the kitchen, his hair disheveled, wearing only a pair of flannel pajama pants and a grey t-shirt. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Eleanor sitting at our kitchen table like an uninvited judge at a trial. His gaze flicked from the elderly woman to the black-and-white photograph lying face-up on the pine boards. "Who the hell is that? And what is going on?"
"Miles, go back upstairs," I said, my voice tight and strained.
"Like hell I will!" Miles stepped between me and the table, his chest heaving as his protective instincts flared—the exact same stubborn Vance bloodline that had cursed his father. "I just woke up, the guest room door was wide open, all of Evelyn’s clothes are gone, and now there’s a stranger sitting in our kitchen at two in the morning reading old family blackmail! What is happening to this house?"
"Evelyn's gone?" Eleanor asked, her tone shifting from clinical coldness to sudden, genuine surprise. She stood up from the chair with surprising agility, her silver-topped cane tapping sharply against the floor. "Gone where?"
"I don't know!" Miles yelled, running a hand through his hair. "Her suitcase is missing from the closet. The rental car she parked down by the mailboxes is gone. The smart-home hub we installed in the hallway—the one she used to lock the pantry—is flashing a red error code."
I felt a cold sweat break out across the back of my neck. I looked from Miles to the photograph, then back to Eleanor. "She didn't leave," I said, the realization hitting me with the force of a physical blow. "She didn't run away because she was defeated."
"No," Eleanor hissed, her face draining of color beneath her powder. "She didn't run away at all. She was waiting for us to open the door."
Before anyone could take another breath, the entire house plunged into absolute, pitch-black darkness.
The refrigerator hum died instantly. The digital clock on the microwave flickered, flashed a series of erratic zeros, and went blank. Through the kitchen window, the security lights along the perimeter fence—the ones I had hardwired myself after the first break-in—died with a faint, metallic pop.
"The main breaker," Miles muttered, his eyes darting toward the basement door in the corner of the kitchen. "The panel is outside behind the utility shed."
"Don't go out there," Eleanor commanded, her voice cutting through the dark like a razor. "That isn't a power failure, boy. That's a firewall."
Suddenly, the screen of Miles’s smartphone—which he still held tightly in his hand—lit up with a blinding, white glare. A notification banner slid down from the top of the screen, accompanied by an automated, synthetic voice blaring from the speaker at maximum volume:
*SYSTEM OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL. SECURE PROTOCOL OMEGA ENGAGED.*
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Miles stared down at the screen, his face illuminating in the ghastly white light. "Mom... the deed to the property. It’s... it’s no longer registered in your name."
***
