Chapter 4

Pudding yelped in pain and bolted.

When Chester looked up and saw me standing at the end of the hallway, his face immediately melted into a gentle smile. "You're up. Why didn't you sleep in?"

I locked my gaze on his eyes, forcing down the storm raging inside me. "Oh, I just needed to use the bathroom."

To make him let his guard down, I played the obedient patient for three days straight. I took my medicine on time, never mentioned Dorothy again, and even offered to redecorate the apartment the way I liked it.

I went to work as usual. Even my colleagues occasionally teased, "Finally taking it easy, huh? Don't you need to pick up your kid these days?"

I simply smiled and shook my head, revealing nothing. Inside, I was forming bold guesses. I had no idea if I was being watched, so I trod carefully, keeping up the facade I had built.

Chester was clearly pleased, seeing that he had relaxed his watch over me.

This morning, he even left early for a company emergency. The moment the front door clicked shut behind him, my blank gaze snapped sharply into focus.

I rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the thinnest boning knife I could find, and went straight for the study. For the past few nights, I had been hearing strange noises coming from that room, like something being sanded down.

I pushed the door open and swept my eyes across every corner. The wallpaper was new—perfectly applied—while the furniture was mint, without a single scuff or dent. The carpet, however…

I lifted the heavy rug. The hardwood floor underneath gleamed, freshly waxed, the scent still lingering in the air. I remembered just last month, Dorothy had thrown a building block in a tantrum and chipped the floor.

Now, the floor was as smooth as a mirror.

I lay flat on the ground, sniffing and feeling along the seams, inch by inch, like a K9 dog. Finally, in the deepest corner behind the bookcase, near the baseboard, I found something strange.

The gap between the planks here was slightly wider than the rest, about the thickness of a sheet of paper. This board was just a shade newer than the others, so subtle that one wouldn't notice unless they were looking for it.

My heart began to pound, slamming against my ribs. I took a deep breath and jammed the tip of the boning knife into the gap. I pried hard, and a crack sounded—my manicured nail snapped. Blood seeped from my fingertip.

The hardwood plank ultimately lifted at the corner under sheer force. A faint smell of rot and stale dust rushed up to my face.

I switched on my phone flashlight and aimed it into the dark gap. It was full of years' worth of dust and tiny bits of construction debris.

I was about to give up when a faint white glint caught my eye, cutting through the gray haze. What was that?

I reached in with trembling fingers, ignoring the splinters digging into my skin, and clawed at it. After two tugs, the tiny thing rolled into my palm. I held it up to the sunlight streaming through the window and could finally see it clearly.

It was a tiny, milky-white baby tooth, its root rough and uneven.