66

Sierra’s POV

The morning after felt different. Not safe. Never safe. But… closer. Louis was still next to me when I woke up. His arm was heavy over my waist. For a second, I forgot about the ghost. I just felt warm.

Then I remembered. Lyle. The toy soldier. The lake house.

Louis’s eyes opened. He looked at me and for one second, he smiled a real, sleepy smile. Then he remembered too. The smile vanished.

“Today we find him,” he said, his voice morning-rough.

He got up and started making calls. I made breakfast. Katie was extra cuddly. She could feel the weird mood. She sat on my lap while I stirred the oatmeal.

“Mommy, is the bad man gone?” she asked, playing with my bracelet.

My heart stopped. “What bad man, baby?”

“The one who makes you and Daddy whisper.” She looked up at me with her big, serious eyes. “The one who makes you scared.”

I hugged her tight. “We’re not scared,” I lied. “We’re just… being careful. Like looking both ways before you cross the street.”

“Oh,” she said. She seemed okay with that answer.

Louis came into the kitchen. He looked frustrated. “The name Lyle Baker got a hit. But he’s in prison. Been there for five years for fraud. So it’s not him.”

“What about Lyle Butcher?”

“Nothing. No records that match. It’s a dead end.”

He slammed his hand on the counter. The spoon in the oatmeal pot rattled. Katie jumped.

“Sorry, baby,” he said, his voice softer. He ran a hand through his hair. “It was a stupid idea. A ghost from summer camp. This is bigger than that.”

“Maybe the name is wrong,” I said. “Or maybe it’s not Lyle at all.”

“Then we’re back to nothing!” he said, and I could hear the panic under his anger. He never let panic show. This was bad.

The doorbell rang. We all froze. Louis went to the security screen. It was a delivery man with a big flat box.

“It’s from the gallery,” Louis said, confused. “The painting we bought months ago. They’re finally delivering it.”

We let them in. Two men in gloves carried in a huge, rectangle wrapped in brown paper. They leaned it against the living room wall.

“Need help unwrapping it, sir?” one asked.

“No. We’ve got it,” Louis said. He tipped them and they left.

We stared at the package. We hadn’t bought a painting. Not that I remembered.

“Did you buy a painting?” I asked Louis.

“No.”

A bad feeling started in my stomach. Louis took a knife and carefully slit the tape on the paper. He pulled the paper away.

It wasn’t a painting.

It was a giant photo. A blown-up picture. It was a picture of *us*. Louis and me. From last night.

We were in our bedroom window. The photo was taken from outside, from far away, but you could see it was us. We were standing close. My head was on his shoulder. It looked like a nice moment.

But someone had drawn on the photo with red paint. They had drawn a big, ugly heart around the two of us. And across the bottom, in drippy red letters, it said:

**SO ROMANTIC. IT ALMOST MAKES ME SICK.**

Katie was staring at it. “Is that you and Daddy?” she asked.

“Don’t look, baby!” I said, too sharp. I turned her around and told the nanny to take her upstairs, now.

Louis was just staring at the photo. His face had no color.

“He was in the garden,” he whispered. “Last night. While we were… He was watching. He took this.”

The world tilted. I sat down on the floor before I fell. He saw us. He saw everything.

Louis kicked the photo. The glass cracked. “ENOUGH!” he yelled. He yelled so loud the whole house shook. “YOU WANT ME? COME AND GET ME! STOP HIDING!”

He was screaming at the walls. At the ghost. I’d never seen him break like that.

I got up and went to him. I grabbed his face in my hands. “Louis. Stop. Look at me.”

His eyes were wild. Scared and furious.

“He wants you to break,” I said, my voice calm even though I was screaming inside. “This is the game. To make you crazy. Don’t let him win.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. He put his forehead against mine. “I can’t find him, Sierra. I can’t protect you if I can’t find him.”

“We’ll find him together,” I said. “But not like this.”

We called Martin and his team. They took the photo away to check for fingerprints, for clues. Of course there wouldn’t be any. The ghost was too smart.

The rest of the day was awful. We were like tigers in a cage, pacing. Jumping at every sound. I tried to play with Katie but I couldn’t focus.

That night, after Katie was asleep, we were in our room again. The curtains were shut tight. We checked the locks three times.

We got into bed. We didn’t touch. We just lay there in the dark, staring at the ceiling.

“I keep thinking about the picture,” Louis said quietly. “The heart. It wasn’t just hate. It was… jealousy. Like he’s jealous of us.”

“That’s even creepier,” I said.

I rolled over to look at him. His profile was sharp in the dim light. “What if we’re thinking about it wrong?” I said. “What if it’s not about something you did to him? What if it’s about something he wanted? Something you have?”

Louis turned his head. “Like what?”

“Like… a life. A family. This house. He knows everything about it. He knows your old habits. What if he… wanted to *be* you? Or wanted what was yours?”

Louis was silent for a long time. “The lake house kid. Lyle. He was poor. His mom was a servant. We had everything. Boats, toys, big dinners… He just watched. Maybe he wasn’t mad I didn’t stop the bullies. Maybe he was mad that I *had* it all. And now I still have it all. A wife. A kid. And he has… nothing.”

It made a sick kind of sense.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. We both froze. I didn’t want to look.

Louis reached over and grabbed it. He read the text. His whole body went stiff.

“What?” I asked, my voice trembling.

He showed me.

**You figured it out, didn’t you? Not about the bullies. About the wanting. It’s so much more than that. You took what was supposed to be mine. Now I’m taking it back. Piece by piece. Starting with her.**

“Starting with her…” I whispered. “He means me.”

Louis’s eyes were pure fire. “No,” he said. “He’s not touching you. He’s not.”

He got out of bed and started pulling on clothes. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m going out. I’m done waiting.”

“Out where? It’s midnight!”

“To the old lake house. It’s the only place that connects us. Maybe he goes there. Maybe he left something. I have to *do* something, Sierra!”

I got out of bed too. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“He’s targeting *me*, Louis! You said it yourself! Maybe I’m the key. Maybe I need to be there. And you are *not* leaving me alone in this house after a text like that.”

We stared at each other in the dark room. Two stubborn, scared people.

Finally, he nodded. “Okay. Get dressed. Warm clothes. We’ll take Katie to my mother’s on the way.”

We moved fast and quiet. We woke Katie up, bundled her into the car. She slept the whole drive to Vivienne’s. We didn’t even wake her as we carried her inside and laid her on Grandma’s sofa. Vivienne appeared in a robe, her face full of questions.

“Don’t ask,” Louis said. “Just keep her safe. We’ll be back by morning.”

She just nodded. “Be careful.”

We got back in the car. Louis drove fast. The city lights faded behind us. We were heading up into the dark, wooded mountains where the old lake house was.

It was a two-hour drive. We didn’t talk much. My mind was racing. What if he was there? What would we do?

Finally, Louis turned down a bumpy, overgrown driveway. Trees scraped the sides of the car. We stopped in front of a big, dark shape. The lake house.

It was huge and creepy in the moonlight. The windows were broken. It looked dead.

Louis turned off the engine. The silence was huge.

“Ready?” he asked.

“No,” I said. But I opened my door.

We walked toward the house, our footsteps loud on the gravel. This was it. The beginning of the ghost’s story. And maybe, tonight, we would find its end.