Chapter 5 - Three KnocksMark immediately reached for the security panel.
The system was offline.
Every camera had gone dark.
Sarah pulled Lily behind her.
“Stay with me.”
Arthur stepped backward.
“Mark, we need to leave.”
“No.”
Mark looked toward the staircase.
“If someone broke into this house, I'm not running.”
A faint metallic sound echoed from upstairs.
Clink.
Then another.
Mark moved toward the stairs.
Sarah grabbed his sleeve.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“We don't know who's up there.”
Mark stared into the darkness.
Then a voice came from the second floor.
“Mark.”
His blood froze.
He knew that voice.
It was older.
Deeper.
But unmistakable.
“Ethan?”
No answer.
Mark climbed the stairs slowly.
At the top, a bedroom door stood open.
Inside, moonlight spilled through the curtains.
There was no one there.
But something had been placed on the bed.
A small wooden box.
Mark approached it.
On the lid was a photograph of Clara.
His hands trembled as he opened the box.
Inside was a silver watch.
Exactly the kind Lily had described.
Beside it was a handwritten note.
Mark unfolded it.
You were never supposed to find this.
His heart pounded.
Then another line appeared beneath it.
But now that you have, you need to know what Clara discovered before she died.
Mark read the final sentence.
And his entire expression changed.
Your father did not die naturally.
Mark stopped breathing.
His father had died twenty years earlier.
Heart failure.
That was the official story.
But now—
Someone had apparently murdered him too.
And Clara had discovered it.
Behind Mark, the bedroom door slowly moved.
He turned.
Nothing.
Then his phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
STOP DIGGING.
May you like
A second message arrived immediately.
OR LILY WILL DISAPPEAR NEXT.
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