Chapter 158

I am standing in the corridor outside the east wing with my pulse still going at a speed that has nothing to do with the current stillness of the house and everything to do with the last several hours of my life.

The cleaners are already moving through the dining room in their white coveralls, scrubbing the spray of red from the baseboards and picking shards of expensive crystal out of the rugs. It is a silent, efficient operation that feels far too practiced for comfort. My skin is crawling with the leftover hum of adrenaline, making my fingers twitch every time a door clicks or a heavy footstep falls in the hallway.

My family is accounted for. That is the thing I have been using as an anchor for the last forty minutes, returning to it every time my brain tries to pull me somewhere worse. Lucas is with my mother. Tyler is shaken but unhurt. My father is somewhere in the lower levels doing something I have been deliberately not asking about with the man who was caught.