Chapter 5 - The Homecoming from Hell
The drive down from the Rockies was breathtaking. The golden afternoon sun reflected off the snow-covered continental divide, and Jake had the stereo blasting classic rock. On his left wrist, a brand-new Rolex Submariner—a birthday gift to himself, charged to his corporate marketing expense account—caught the light with every turn of the steering wheel.
He pulled into the Whispering Pines subdivision around four in the afternoon on Sunday.
The neighborhood was peaceful. Leaf blowers hummed in the distance. Neighbors were out walking their golden retrievers. Everything was orderly, wealthy, and calm.
Jake turned into his driveway and frowned.
There was a piece of yellow police tape fluttering from the lower branch of the blue spruce tree near his mailbox.
"What the hell?" Jake muttered. "Did the HOA have an issue with the landscaping crew?"
He hit the garage door opener. Nothing happened.
He clicked it again. The heavy cedar door remained closed.
Sighing in annoyance, Jake put the Cayenne in park, grabbed his weekend duffel, and stepped out into the crisp air. He walked up the front flagstone walkway and stopped dead.
The front door was completely unlatched. It was slightly ajar, resting against the frame.
Near the side entrance by the garage, the window pane had been shattered, and a crude piece of plywood had been screwed into the frame from the outside.
A cold trickle of unease pierced through Jake's lingering hangover.
"Olivia?" he called out, pushing the front door open.
The house was freezing. The thermostat had clearly been turned off, or the door had been left open for days. The air was dead, stale, and carried an odor that made Jake’s stomach instantly heave.
It smelled like an abandoned meat locker.
"Olivia, why is the door open?" he yelled, his voice echoing through the vast, open-concept foyer. "Where’s Noah?"
No sound. No baby crying. No white-noise machine humming from the nursery upstairs. No smell of roasting chicken or lavender floor cleaner.
Jake dropped his duffel bag onto the slate floor.
He walked into the kitchen. On the marble island, untouched and sitting in the center of the counter, was a tarnished antique silver cup wrapped in yellowing tissue paper. Beside it lay a heavy steel crowbar and a pair of industrial trauma shears.
"What is this?" Jake whispered, his heart beginning to thud uncomfortably against his ribs. "Olivia!"
He turned and bounded up the stairs, taking them two at a time. "Olivia, this isn't funny! If this is some kind of sick passive-aggressive joke because I went to Aspen—"
He reached the landing.
He turned toward the nursery door.
The breath was violently sucked out of Jake Bennett’s lungs.
The nursery door was wide open.
The ivory New Zealand wool rug was gone. It had been pulled up, leaving only the bare plywood subfloor—and that subfloor was stained with a massive, horrifying silhouette of dried, blackened blood.
The blood had soaked deep into the wood grain. Splatters of it were visible on the baseboards, on the legs of the white rocking chair, and dried smears ran toward the hallway, ending in frantic handprints that looked like someone had been dragged—or had dragged themselves—toward the door.
In the middle of the dark, dried pool lay a single, discarded latex medical glove, stiff and brown with gore, and an empty plastic syringe casing.
The bassinet was empty. The mattress had been stripped.
No blankets. No baby.
"No," Jake whispered, stumbling backward. His heel caught on the edge of the hallway runner, and he slammed hard against the wall. "No, no, no..."
His mind fractured into a thousand terrified directions.
A home invasion. A burglary gone wrong. Olivia had fought someone off. Someone had broken the side glass, come up the stairs, and slaughtered his wife and stolen his son while he was drinking twenty-five-year-old scotch on a heated patio in Aspen.
"OLIVIA!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, sprinting down the hallway into the master bedroom.
The master bed was made. Completely untouched.
The master bathroom was empty.
He ran back to the nursery, his hands shaking so violently he could barely hold his phone. He stared at the dried blood on the subfloor. There was so much of it. No human being could lose that much blood and survive. It looked like an execution chamber.
"Oh God. Oh God, please," Jake whimpered, tears of sheer, self-preserving terror springing to his eyes.
He fumbled with his phone, turning off Airplane Mode.
The second the cellular connection established, his phone convulsed in his palm.
A wall of digital noise slammed into him:
*Forty-seven missed calls.*
*Thirty-two voicemails.*
*Eighty-six text messages.*
The names flashed across the screen in a blur: *Detective Miller - Jefferson County Sheriff... St. Luke’s Hospital ICU... Denver Health Trauma Center... Julian Davies... His Mother’s Assisted Living Facility...*
And then, his fingers slipped, and the brand-new, six-thousand-dollar Rolex Submariner on his wrist caught against the doorframe. The clasp snapped under the sudden jerk of his arm, and the luxury timepiece fell to the floor, crashing against the exposed subfloor directly in the center of the dried blood. The sapphire crystal shattered with a sickening crunch.
Before Jake could bend down to pick it up, the piercing wail of a police cruiser’s siren echoed from the street outside.
Tires screeched on the asphalt.
Two heavy car doors slammed.
Heavy, authoritative footsteps began running up his front steps.
"Jefferson County Sheriff's Department!" a voice boomed from the downstairs foyer. "Whoever is in the house, show your hands and step into the hall!"
Jake stood frozen in the bloody nursery, his hands trembling in the air, his face completely drained of color.
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"I... I just got home," Jake choked out, his voice cracking into a high-pitched sob. "I just got home from my birthday."
***
