The keys slipped out of my fingers and clattered against the wooden floorboards. The sound rang through the room, sharp and real, but even that didn’t fully wake me from the shock. I just stared at the boot, the drawings, the photographs, the unmistakable signs that this place had not been empty at all.
Then I heard the footsteps overhead.
Slow, careful, unmistakable.
Someone was upstairs.
I should tell you how I got there, because nothing about what happened at that farmhouse can be understood unless you know the kind of life I thought I had been living before George died.
My name is Amanda Pierce. I was forty-two years old when the state trooper came to my apartment door on a rainy Tuesday at exactly 4:17 in the afternoon. I remember the time because I had just come home from the hardware store where I worked as a bookkeeper, and I hadn’t even taken off my coat yet. The groceries I had picked up on the way home were still in one arm. Milk. Eggs. Green beans. A rotisserie chicken because George liked dark meat and always stole the drumstick before I could get the plate on the table.