Chapter 12 - The Echo of a Voice
Three days later, the unease of the midnight rose had faded into the background of daily life, overshadowed by the chaotic joy of raising a toddler. Adam had been working late at his downtown architectural firm, leaving me alone in the sprawling kitchen to prepare dinner while Ruth played happily with her wooden blocks on the rug.
The landline phone on the wall—a number we rarely used, reserved only for close family and emergency services—suddenly shrilled.
I jumped, dropping a wooden spoon onto the counter. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and walked over, picking up the receiver. "Hello?"
Silence crackled on the other end. Not the empty silence of a disconnected line, but the heavy, rhythmic breathing of someone listening intently.
"Hello? Who is this?" I demanded, my voice tightening.
A soft, raspy chuckle scraped across the wire. It was a voice I hadn't heard in months, a voice that had haunted my deepest nightmares, whispering from the dark corners of my hospital room.
*“Did you really think stone walls and iron bars could keep a Vance away, Nora?”*
My blood turned to ice. The phone slipped from my trembling fingers, clattering against the kitchen island before dangling by its curly cord. I stared at the plastic receiver swaying back and forth like a pendulum.
Evelyn. It was impossible. She was in a maximum-security federal penitentiary three states away. She was guarded 24/7. Her appeals were denied.
"Mommy?" Ruth’s innocent voice broke through my panic. She had crawled over, holding up a blue wooden block. "Mommy, look. A square."
I dropped to my knees, sweeping Ruth into my arms so fiercely that she let out a startled squeak. I buried my face in her soft curls, my mind racing in blind terror. How? How could she reach me? Was there an accomplice? Was Marcus’s security firm compromised?
When Adam came home an hour later, he found all the doors deadbolted, the curtains drawn tight, and me sitting in the middle of the living room floor with the lights blazing, holding Ruth like a shield.
"Nora, what is happening?" Adam dropped his briefcase, rushing to my side. His face drained of color as he saw the terror in my eyes.
"She called," I whispered, my voice shaking uncontrollably. "Evelyn called me."
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Adam’s expression hardened into a mask of pure fury. He immediately pulled out his phone, dialing Marcus’s private number. "Marcus. We have a breach. Evelyn somehow contacted the house."
***
