Chapter 6: The Knock
We didn't talk about the curtain.
We didn't need to.
Jason dead-bolted the front door and I checked every window on the ground floor.
We moved through the house quietly, the way people do when they don't want to be heard from outside.
I made coffee I didn't drink.
Jason sat at the kitchen table with his phone and didn't look at it.
At two in the afternoon, there was a knock at the door.
We both went still.
I looked at Jason.
He shook his head slightly.
I pulled up the doorbell camera on my phone.
Tom Harris was standing on our porch.
He was alone.
He was wearing a fleece jacket and holding a small paper bag — the kind from the bakery two blocks over.
He looked exactly like a neighbor stopping by.
"Don't," Jason said quietly.
The knock came again.
Three light taps, patient and unhurried.
Then Tom's voice, easy and warm through the door: "Hey, just wanted to check in.
Saw you got home this morning.
Linda made too many scones."
Neither of us moved.
A long pause.
"I heard there was a police car here last night," Tom said.
"Just wanted to make sure everything was okay."
Jason's jaw tightened.
Tom waited another moment.
Then: "All right.
I'll leave these on the step.
You two take care."
We watched him on the camera.
He set the bag down carefully, straightened up, and looked directly at the camera for just a moment — not long enough to seem strange, but long enough.
Then he turned and walked back down the path.
I called Paulson.
"He just came to the door," I said.
"Tom Harris.
He brought food.
He mentioned the police car."
"What did you do?"
"We didn't answer."
"Good." A pause.
"He's testing you.
He wants to know how much you know and whether you're frightened.
Don't give him either answer."
"Detective, when will you know what's in the box?"
"We're working on it.
The lock is combination — we have a technician on it.
Could be today, could be tomorrow morning."
"And until then?"
"Until then, you stay inside, you don't engage with him, and you call me if anything changes." Another pause.
"Claire, I want to tell you something.
What you and your husband did — calling it in, calling Margaret, staying calm — that matters.
A lot of people in your position would have walked over and confronted him directly."
"We thought about it," I admitted.
"I know," he said.
"Don't."
I set the phone down.
Jason was standing at the kitchen window, angled so he couldn't be seen from outside.
"He's back in his house," Jason said.
"Paulson says he's testing us."
"I know what he's doing." Jason turned from the window.
"He's been doing it for six months.
Every conversation, every favor, every time he showed up with a flashlight or a ladder.
He was managing us."
I thought about the smoke detector.
Tom on the stairs.
Tom in the upstairs hallway, standing right beside the closet where Margaret had scratched her warning.
"He knew we'd find the message eventually," I said.
"He was waiting to see if we'd act on it."
"And when we left for the weekend, he decided he couldn't wait anymore."
We stood in our own kitchen feeling like strangers in it.
My phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
I opened it.
*I think we should talk.
Just the two of us.
May you like
I can explain everything.
— Tom*
