Chapter 9 - The Midnight Visitor
The safety of their home felt fragile, like a glass house built in the path of a hurricane, as Mark bolted the front door and drew the heavy curtains. Elena sat at the kitchen island, meticulously analyzing the recovered ledger while Leo peacefully dozed off on the sofa, clutching his teddy bears as if nothing in the world could ever harm him. The emergency alert on the radio had stopped, replaced by an eerie, unbroken static that hummed through the house speakers like a living pulse. Suddenly, a sharp, three-knock rhythm echoed against the front door—deliberate, calm, and terrifyingly familiar. Mark motioned for Elena to stay back, his heart pounding against his ribs as he crept slowly toward the entryway, his hand closing around a heavy brass candlestick on the hall table. He peered through the small peephole, expecting to see masked men or federal agents from the ledger's past, but instead found a lone woman standing under the porch light. She wore a faded leather vest and a kind, weathered face that Mark hadn’t seen since he was a small boy—it was his estranged aunt Clara, who had vanished from town the exact same week his grandfather disappeared. Mark unlocked the door and pulled it open, staring at her in shock, while Clara stepped inside out of the cold, whispering that they had all walked straight into a carefully laid trap.
