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Prologue
Something was off. She had the uneasy feeling of being watched.
Rachel Stroeb stepped away from the darkened portico, leaving her husband fumbling with his keys, their morose teenage daughter surrounded by a pile of winter coats and luggage.
Tall hedges and drooping palms hid their neighbors' houses, a film of dirty clouds blocking the light of the moon. But there was no sign of anyone, or anything amiss.
"Everything okay, Rachel?" D.C. called.
"I thought..." Rachel said. "Never mind. It's probably just the jetlag."
"I don't understand why the sconces aren't lit," her husband said. "I can't see a damn thing."
The darkness -- that must be why things seemed out of kilter. Or maybe it was disappointment that their family was still incomplete.
Rachel returned to the stoop, slipping her arm around Elise's narrow shoulders. Her daughter tensed. Rachel understood. It had been an exhausting flight, an unproductive trip. Just the three of them had returned home to Miami Beach from Madrid. Without Jeremy.
"Here we go. Finally." D.C. pushed open the door, depositing their coats, suitcases and laptops on the white marble floor. "I'll replace those burned-out bulbs in the morning."
Rachel flicked on the foyer light, reassured by the familiar arrangement of photos on the stippled wallpaper, the polished mahogany banister leading to the upstairs bedrooms. But the silence was unsettling. She was accustomed to the radio playing classical music, sounds of healthy family commotion. Their home on Lotus Island, where they'd lived the last twenty years, had mostly been a place of making wonderful memories.
Rachel took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. Week-old flowers on the foyer table, and dog. No matter how frequently they bathed poor old Geezer, the smell of ripe fur like a dowager's ancient fox wrap hung in the air.
"Geezer." Rachel whistled. After ten o'clock. He was probably asleep for the night in his corner of their bedroom. Some watchdog.
Elise was twirling her long dark braid with one hand as she texted with the other. The smattering of freckles on the bridge of her upturned nose always reminded Rachel of cinnamon on vanilla pudding.
D.C. called from the kitchen. "You wouldn't believe how much junk mail we got in one week. And Flora left a note. She walked Geezer before she left around four."
"Can I go see Carlos?" Elise asked.
"Sorry, honey," Rachel said. "It's late. You have school tomorrow."
"Please, Mom. I won't stay out long. I promise." Her daughter's pretty green eyes were bloodshot, probably from crying on the plane. It hadn't been the winter break any of them had wanted.
"What's that?" D.C. said, coming in from the kitchen. Two days' whiskers covered his chiseled cheeks and chin. Jeremy had grown a beard while in Europe this past year and Rachel was taken aback by the striking resemblance between the father and son.
"I want to go to Carlos's," Elise said. "Just for a little bit."
"Absolutely not," D.C. said. "You're not traipsing over to the Castillos' at this hour."
"Fine," Elise said, eyes overflowing with tears. "I can see why Jeremy didn't want to come home." And she raced up the stairs, the slamming of her bedroom door echoing in the empty house.
"You didn't have to be so harsh, D.C."
"Jeez, Rachel. So now I have to tiptoe around both my kids?"
"You could try being a little less righteous." Rachel slipped off her new boots and stashed them in the closet, noticing blood on them from the nosebleed she'd had on the plane. Her tee shirt was also stained-three drops that looked like splattered tears. She pulled it over her head, hung it from a hook in the closet, and put on one of Elise's sweatshirts.
D.C. was pacing beside their luggage and coats. In a stretched-out tee shirt and worn jeans he looked more like one of his students than a professor of international economics. "Less righteous?" he said. "I've got a twenty-two-year-old son who's wasting his life and a teenage daughter who doesn't like restrictions. What's wrong with asking them to take some responsibility for a change?"
"I'm just saying, maybe you should lighten up. Elise is having a tough time. She's disappointed Jeremy didn't come home with us."
"We're all disappointed."
"Elise is only sixteen. She worships her brother."
"Well, maybe our daughter needs to find a new hero."
Rachel took a deep breath. Why did her husband have to be so damn stubborn?
Geezer had made it down the curving staircase, tail wagging, arthritic hind legs moving stiffly behind him. He licked Rachel's hand as she bent to hug him. "Stinky puppy," she said. "Tomorrow, before I leave, you're getting a bath."
D.C. touched his shirt pocket, perhaps hoping to find a cigarette, but they'd both quit smoking over a year ago, at least in front of each other and the kids. "Look, honey," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm as upset as you are that he didn't come home."
Rachel picked a wilted chrysanthemum from the vase on the foyer table. "You know, Danny, deep down all Jeremy really wants is for you to be proud of him."
"Hey." Her husband reached for her. He was a foot taller than she, and his chin rested comfortably on her head. "He'll figure it out."
Shortly after eleven o'clock, Rachel and D.C. climbed into their high four-poster bed. The sheets were cool against her cheek. So much nicer than a hotel. Geezer was panting in his sleep in the corner of the room. D.C. slid his arms around her and Rachel pressed against his chest. He smelled like perspiration and smoke. So, he'd found a cigarette after all. She wondered where he kept his stash.
Rachel snuggled closer to her husband. In twenty-five years of marriage, there had been a few bumps and missteps, and this one, too, would pass. He kissed her hair.
Before they went to bed, they had taken Geezer for a walk around the island. When they returned home, Rachel had been surprised to get a text message from Elise. Please don't be upset with me, Mom. I'm over at Carlos's for a little. He promised to walk me home.
And Rachel had been furious. But then the anger seeped out with her fatigue. Maybe their restrictiveness was what had pushed Jeremy away from them. Just this once, she'd let it go with Elise.
A key turned in the front door. Rachel glanced at the clock on the night table. Just before midnight. Elise had to get up at 6:30 for school. She'd be exhausted. D.C.'s breathing was deep and even. Rachel hadn't told him that Elise had gone out, preferring to keep her daughter's secret to starting another altercation. She listened for Elise's light footsteps running up the stairs. Rachel always left the bedroom door open a few inches to hear her kids coming and going. What was Elise doing downstairs? The thin beam that leaked in through the crack in the open door went out. Elise must have turned off the downstairs foyer light. Why would she have done that?
There were footsteps climbing the stairs. Slow, heavy, not Elise's. Had Carlos come back with her? Was Elise trying to sneak him into her room?
Rachel sat up, annoyed. This wasn't like her daughter. She strained to see, but the room was a mass of hulking shadows. The footsteps got louder. But only one set; where was Elise?
Rachel's chest tightened. Could there be an intruder with a key?
She shook her husband. "Danny, wake up. Wake up. I think someone's in the house."
He groaned.
Rachel grabbed her cellphone from the night table and pressed the Contacts button. "G." She scrolled down to "Guardhouse."
The footsteps were just outside the bedroom door. Please God, don't let Elise come home now.
She pressed Send. It rang. Once. Twice. Come on, answer.
The bedroom door opened slowly.
Geezer grunted in his sleep.
There was a shape in the doorway. No face, just a creeping shadow. It was holding something. Pointing it at her.
Rachel heard only the blood pounding in her head. She dug her fingers into D.C.'s arm. Please, take what you want, she thought, but don't hurt us.
The shape moved closer.
Finally, a voice in her ear. "Guardhouse."
"Help," Rachel shouted into her cellphone. "Help us."
Geezer was barking hysterically, wildly.
"Rachel, get down," D.C. hollered.
The weight of her husband's body pressed against hers, protecting her, blocking her. There was a flash of light, then a deafening noise shattered the night. A blow, like a violent wind, threw Rachel against the headboard, taking her breath away.
Something warm and wet spread over her, covering her, drowning her.
"Elise, Jeremy," Rachel whispered as she faded from consciousness. "I promise I'll never leave you."
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