61

Sierra’s POV

The morning after the party felt empty. The house was too quiet. Servants were cleaning up the mess, but they were quiet too. It was like everyone was holding their breath.

I made pancakes for Katie. I made them in the shape of hearts, like I used to when she was little. She ate them slowly, swinging her legs under the table.

“Did the ghost man come to the party?” she asked with her mouth full.

Louis and I looked at each other fast. We never used the word “ghost” in front of her.

“What do you mean, sweetie?” I asked, trying to sound normal.

“Nanny Anna said the party was to scare away a ghost,” Katie said. She took a big gulp of milk. “But I didn’t see any. Just Mr. Jenkins who sneezed a lot.”

I forced a laugh. It sounded fake. “No ghosts, baby. Just a party.”

But inside, I was screaming. The ghost wasn’t just at the party. He was in our garden. He was in our phones.

Louis’s phone rang. He walked away to answer it. He talked in a low voice for a long time. When he came back, his face was serious.

“The photo,” he said. “It was sent from a burner phone. Bought for cash at a store downtown. The security footage from the store is blurry. The person wore a hood.”

“So it’s another dead end,” I said. I felt tired down to my bones.

“Not exactly.” He sat down. “Martin had an idea. The photo was taken from the garden, right? From a specific spot. We checked the ground there this morning.”

“And?”

“We found footprints. Not deep. But they were there. And next to them…” He paused. “A small, pressed-down patch in the grass. Like someone had put down a bag, or… a backpack.”

A backpack. The word sat between us. It was such a normal thing. A kid carries a backpack to school. A hiker carries one on a trail. What did a ghost carry in a backpack?

“What does it mean?” I asked.

“It means he’s prepared. He brings stuff with him. Maybe a camera. Maybe something else.” Louis looked out the window toward the garden. “He’s not just watching. He’s… documenting.”

The rest of the day moved in slow motion. I tried to read a book. The words just swam on the page. Louis worked in his office, but I knew he was just staring at screens, looking for answers we didn’t have.

In the afternoon, the doorbell rang. It was a delivery guy with a package. It was for me. A small, flat box.

Martin took it from the guy and brought it to the kitchen. He put on gloves before he opened it. Louis came in, his face tight.

Inside the box was no bomb, no dead animal. It was a framed photo. A professional-looking one.

It was a picture of Katie. From her school picture day just a few weeks ago. She was wearing a blue dress with a lace collar, smiling her missing-tooth smile. It was the picture we ordered to send to the grandparents.

But someone had drawn on the glass of the frame. With a red marker. They’d drawn a crude circle around Katie’s face. And next to it, they’d drawn a big, ugly frowny face.

My hands started to shake. Louis took the frame from Martin.

“The school,” he said, his voice deadly quiet. “They sent these out to families last week.”

“So he got our copy?” I asked. “From our mail?”

“Or he got one from the school,” Louis said. “He could have pretended to be a parent. Said he never got his. It would be easy.”

He turned the frame over. On the back, written on the paper backing in the same red marker, were two words:

**SOON. SOON.**

The words seemed to pulse, like a heartbeat. Soon. Soon. What was soon?

I felt a scream building in my throat, but I choked it down. Katie was in the next room watching cartoons. I couldn’t scream.

Louis put the frame down carefully, like it was a snake. “Martin. I want someone at the school. Tomorrow. Inside. I want to see the office, the records, everything.”

Martin nodded and left.

I stared at the frowny face over my daughter’s smile. “He’s not trying to scare us anymore, is he?” I whispered. “He’s telling us what he’s going to do.”

Louis didn’t answer. He just pulled me into a hug. He held me so tight I could feel his heart beating, hard and fast against mine.

That night, we didn’t even try to sleep in our room. We made a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor of Katie’s room. All three of us slept there, like puppies in a pile. Katie thought it was a cool adventure. She fell asleep right away, clutching her stuffed bunny.

Louis and I lay awake in the dark, listening to her breathe.

“We can’t live like this,” I whispered.

“We won’t,” he whispered back. “I have a new idea. A bad idea.”

“Worse than the party?”

“Yes. And more dangerous.” He turned his head to look at me. In the glow of the nightlight, his eyes were dark pools. “We use me as bait.”

“No.”

“Sierra, listen. He’s focused on the family. On *us*. But what if I break the picture? What if I leave?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I pretend to go away. On a business trip. Very public. I make a scene about it. I make it look like we’re fighting, that the pressure is breaking us apart. That our perfect family is cracking.” His words came out in a fast, quiet rush. “If he wants to ruin us, the best time to strike is when we seem weak. When I’m not here to protect you. He might get reckless. He might come closer. And when he does…”

“And when he does, you won’t be here!” I hissed, trying to be quiet so I wouldn’t wake Katie. “That’s the whole point! You’ll be gone!”

“I won’t be gone,” he said. “I’ll be close. Closer than he thinks. Everyone will see me get on a plane. But I’ll come back in a private car. I’ll hide nearby. With a team. We’ll watch the house even closer. We’ll wait for him to make his move on you and Katie, and then we’ll have him.”

It was the craziest, scariest plan yet. It meant being alone. It meant pretending to be weak when I had to be the strongest I’d ever been.

“What if he doesn’t take the bait?” I asked.

“Then we’re no worse off. But if he does… we can end this.”

I thought about the red frowny face. SOON. SOON. We were running out of time.

Katie sighed in her sleep and rolled over. Her little hand flopped out and landed on my arm. I looked from her peaceful face to Louis’s desperate, determined one.

We were out of good options. All we had left were bad ones.

“Okay,” I said, the word tasting like metal in my mouth. “We do it your way. We crack the picture.”

Two days later, the act began. Louis “missed” Katie’s school play. He was “stuck in a meeting.” I went alone and made sure to look sad. I let a gossip columnist “overhear” me on the phone, sounding upset, saying “I can’t do this alone anymore.”

Louis came home late and “yelled.” The servants heard it. We made sure of it. He slammed a door. He said, “This isn’t a home, it’s a prison!” loud enough for the walls to hear.

The next morning, he packed a suitcase. He didn’t kiss me goodbye. He just gave me a cold look and said, “I’ll be in Tokyo for the week. Handle things.”

A photographer got a picture of him looking grim, getting into his car. The story was already spreading online: *Trouble in Paradise? Crowe Couple on the Rocks After Traumatic Year.*

The car drove away. The plane took off. The world thought Louis Crowe was gone.

But that night, in the dead quiet of the house, a secret panel in the basement wall opened. And Louis, dressed in dark clothes, stepped back inside. He looked pale and grim.

“It’s done,” he said. “I’m here.”

He was in the house, but he had to stay hidden. In a secret room. He couldn’t be with us. He could only watch on cameras.

That was the worst part. I felt more alone than ever, even though he was just a few walls away. Katie kept asking where Daddy was. I told her he was working, and my heart broke a little.

We were a cracked picture, just like we promised. And now we had to wait for the ghost to try and smash us the rest of the way.