Norah looked down at her wrist, where Hutchkins's grip had left a faint red mark already starting to fade. It would be gone by morning. She had a feeling the rest of this wouldn't fade nearly so easily. Vivien sat down heavily on the top step, the same step where their father used to drink his coffee and put her face in her hands for just a moment, not crying, just breathing. 36 years old, an FBI badge in her jacket.
And for one long moment, she looked exactly like the 9-year-old girl who used to sit in that same spot, waiting for their father to come home from a long shift. "We're going to be okay, " Norah said, sitting down beside her. I know, Vivien said. I just wish he was here to see how this ends. He is, Norah said.
This is his porch. He never really left it. Vivien let out a short, tired laugh. The first real laugh either of them had managed all evening. It didn't last long, but it was something.
Norah let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "You okay? " Vivien asked. "I don't know yet, " Norah said. Honestly, "Ask me again tomorrow.
" They stepped back inside and Vivien locked the door behind them. An old habit that felt suddenly less like habit and more like necessity. The house was dark except for the hallway light their father always left burning. A small yellow glow that had stayed on every night of their childhood, no matter the season, no matter who was or wasn't home to see it. Vivien walked straight to the kitchen table and set her phone down, opening the security app with steady hands that Norah suspected were less steady than they looked.
"Everything uploaded, " Vivien said quietly. Every minute of it, cloud storage, encrypted, automatic. Whatever happens next, we've got the truth of tonight sitting somewhere they can't touch. Norah sank into one of the kitchen chairs, suddenly aware of how tired she was. Tired in a way that went deeper than the hour.
Dad installed all this after people kept messing with the fence and the mailbox. Remember, he said I was tired of not being able to prove what really happened on his own property. I upgraded it to cloud storage after he died. Vivien said, "I thought it would help protect the house while we were both traveling. I never imagined we'd need it to protect ourselves.
" Neither of them said what they were both thinking, that a call about suspicious activity at an address like this one, timed the very week they'd finally come home, felt like too clean a coincidence to actually be one. That thought would need daylight and coffee and time to take real shape. For now, Norah just reached across the table and covered her sister's hand with her own. He built a good house, she said quietly. "A house that held.