The twenty-ninth strike landed just as my daughter began singing Happy Birthday to herself.

The rain started again around midnight—a soft, steady New England drizzle that tapped against the antique glass of the study windows like a gentle reminder of the world outside, though it couldn't touch us here. I was sitting in the high-backed leather armchair by the fireplace, wrapped in a cashmere shawl, watching the oak logs burn down to a bed of glowing red embers that cast long, dancing shadows across the mahogany bookshelves. Everett was upstairs, fast asleep beside Sophie, both of them breathing in that deep, untroubled rhythm of people who had nothing left to fear from the dark. The house was silent except for the grandfather clock in the hall and the occasional hiss of water hitting the copper gutters outside. I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the warmth of the fire soak into my shoulders, listening to the clean, steady pulse of my own heart—no scars aching, no ghosts rattling the cellar doors, no ledgers waiting to be balanced in the small hours of the morning. Then, above the sound of the rain against the glass, came a single, sharp metallic click from the front hallway. Not the brass door knocker. Not the musical chime of the spring latch Everett had installed. It was the distinct, heavy sound of a skeleton key turning twice in the old iron lock of the front door—a lock we had never replaced because we thought the frame was too solid to ever be breached from the outside. My eyes flew open. The fire flared once, a sudden tongue of blue flame licking up the chimney as a draft swept through the floorboards. I stood up slowly from the armchair, my hand dropping instinctively to the corner of the walnut desk where the heavy brass letter opener still rested beside the inkwell. The hallway was dark, the amber glow of the chandelier dimmed to a faint ember by the midnight timer. Footsteps—slow, measured, heavy with the weight of wet wool and old leather—were crossing the parquet floor toward the study, stopping just outside the half-open door where the brass handle began to turn with a slow, agonizing creak...