We laughed at the warning scratched inside our new house because our neighbors seemed perfectly kind. Six months later, one security alert made those words impossible to ignore.
I stared at the doorbell feed.
It was the Harrises
Tom and Linda were standing on our porch.
Tom had something in his hand.
At first, I thought it was his phone.
Then he raised it toward our front door.
A key.
I sat upright so fast I nearly knocked over my drink.
Jason looked at me.
“What?”
I handed him the phone.
We watched Tom insert the key into our lock.
It turned.
The door opened.
Linda glanced over her shoulder before following him inside.
Then the door shut.
Jason stared at me.
“What the hell?”
I was already calling the police.
“We never gave them a key.”
“I know.”
“Maybe Margaret did.”
The warning scratched inside our upstairs closet flashed through my mind.
DON’T EVER GIVE THE HARRISES A KEY.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t think she did.”
We were nearly two hours from home at my sister’s house, but Jason had already grabbed his keys.
A police officer called while we were driving.
Two units had reached the house.
Tom and Linda were gone.
There was no forced entry.
Nothing obvious appeared stolen.
“Do they have permission to enter?” the officer asked.
“No.”
“Could the key have come from the previous owner?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer made me furious with myself.
For six months, Margaret’s warning had been sitting 20 feet from our bedroom.
We had laughed at it.
When we reached home, two police cars were parked outside.
Tom and Linda’s house next door was dark.
Officer Ramirez met us at the door.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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