Chapter 2
PART 2
Mark crossed the nursery in three fast steps.
He did not touch Emily. He did not touch Daisy. He went straight to the wall and crouched beside the opening, blocking Emily’s view with his back.
“Move,” she said.
“What?”
“Move away from it.”
He turned halfway, forcing a puzzled expression onto his face. “Emily, it’s probably wiring from the old security system.”
“There was no security system in this room.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I chose every contractor.”
Mark’s jaw tightened. “And you’ve been awake for twelve straight nights.”
There it was.
Not an answer.
A diagnosis.
Daisy gave a low warning sound, not at Mark, but toward the cavity behind his shoulder.
He looked at the dog with open irritation. “That animal destroyed the wall.”
“That animal found something.”
“She found insulation.”
“She found a light.”
Mark stood and brushed plaster from his trousers. “A reflection.”
“In a black wall?”
His eyes flicked toward the opening again.
Emily saw it.
The smallest reaction, but it changed the balance between them. For weeks he had responded to her fear as though he stood outside it, calm and rational, forced to manage the unpredictable woman in front of him.
Now he was afraid of the same hole.
Not because he did not understand it.
Because he did.
Daisy stepped left, keeping one pace between Mark and Emily. Plaster cracked softly under one paw.
Mark exhaled through his nose. “Rachel put ideas in your head.”
“Rachel didn’t hear the clicking.”
“Nobody heard it but you.”
“Daisy did.”
“She’s a dog.”
“And she believed me faster than you did.”
The sentence landed.
Mark’s face went still.
Emily had not planned to say it. That was why it sounded true.
He glanced toward the crib. “Where’s Clara?”
“With Rachel.”
“You sent our daughter away without asking me?”
“I moved her away from a wall making noises.”
“You moved her because you’re spiraling.”
Emily felt the old reflex rise—the need to explain more clearly, speak more softly, offer evidence in a tone he would accept. She had spent months arranging every sentence so Mark could not accuse her of being emotional.
The hole in the wall made that labor suddenly ridiculous.
She pointed toward the door. “Get out of the nursery.”
He stared at her.
“This is my house too.”
“Then stand in the hall while I look inside your wall.”
The word your slipped out before she could stop it.
Mark heard it.
So did she.
He stepped closer, not enough to touch her, but enough to use his height the way he did during arguments. Daisy immediately shifted between them.
“Call her off,” he said.
“She isn’t on you.”
“She’s threatening me.”
“She’s watching the wall.”
Daisy proved it by turning her head away from Mark and back toward the opening.
The dog’s body told the truth more cleanly than either adult in the room.
Mark’s mouth tightened. “I’m fixing this tonight.”
“No.”
“We have a baby coming home.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll patch it.”
“You will not cover it.”
His control slipped for half a second. “You don’t even know what you’re looking at.”
Emily looked directly into his face. “But you do.”
Silence.
Hard crib shadows cut across the rug. The pale room seemed to hold every breath inside it.
Then Mark laughed once.
It was the wrong laugh.
Too quick. Too empty.
“This is insane.”
Emily’s pulse kicked hard. “What’s behind the wall?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why did you look at the light before I told you where it was?”
The question stopped him.
That was the first real power shift.
Mark turned his head toward the broken drywall as though the answer might be hiding there. Emily watched a line of sweat appear near his temple despite the cold room.
He recovered by changing targets.
“Rachel is turning you against me,” he said.
“No.”
“You’ve been telling her everything.”
“I started telling her because you kept telling me I imagined everything.”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Emily, listen to yourself.”
“No. You listen.”
She heard the strength in her own voice and almost did not recognize it.
“For twelve nights there has been a click in this wall. Every time it happened, Clara woke up. Every time I told you, you said I needed medication, sleep, space from my own baby, space from Daisy, space from everyone except you.”
Mark’s eyes sharpened. “I was helping you.”
“Then help me open it.”
He did not answer.
Daisy stepped toward the hole, sniffed once, and stopped.
Emily crouched beside the plaster pile. Mixed with the old powder was a bright silver screw.
Clean threads.
No rust.
No paint.
New.
She picked it up between two scratched fingers.
Mark saw it and went pale.
The weakened patch had not been part of the old house. The screw still carried the sharp shine of something installed recently, hidden quickly, and expected never to be seen.
Someone had opened that wall recently.
Someone had closed it badly.
Emily held up the screw.
“Who put this there?” she asked.
Mark looked at the nursery door.
Not at her.
Not at Daisy.
At the exit.
Then the cavity clicked again.
This time a tiny speaker behind the insulation released half a second of Emily’s own recorded voice.
Please, stop.
Mark froze.
Emily did too.
May you like
The sound had not come from the room.
It had come from inside the wall.
