The next impact shook the entire entryway.
Claire pulled me behind the kitchen wall.
“Bathroom,” she whispered.
This time she came with me.
We made it three steps before another sound came from outside.
Not the man.
Footsteps.
Several pairs.
Fast.
Then a voice thundered through the hallway.
“POLICE! HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!”
Silence.
A second later, something crashed.
Running footsteps.
Ethan's voice came through Claire's phone.
“Claire? Claire!”
She grabbed it.
“We're here!”
“Stay inside!”
Outside, people shouted.
A stairwell door slammed.
Another officer yelled from farther away.
Then came the longest thirty seconds of my life.
Finally somebody knocked.
Three measured knocks.
“East District Police. Claire, Ethan is with us.”
Claire looked through the peephole.
This time she saw uniforms.
She still didn't open immediately.
“Ethan?”
“It's me.”
His face appeared.
Only then did she undo the locks.
The damaged deadbolt barely moved.
When the door finally opened, Ethan stepped inside and caught Claire as her knees gave out.
He was twenty-two, still young enough that his uniform seemed too serious for his face.
But tonight he looked older.
He held her tightly.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Lily?”
“I'm okay.”
Two officers rushed toward the stairwell.
Another examined the door.
The metal surrounding the lock had been gouged and bent.
On the hallway floor lay the insulated delivery bag.
An officer carefully opened it.
There was no food inside.
Only a towel.
Zip ties.
A roll of tape.
Work gloves.
And tools.
Claire looked away.
Ethan didn't.
His jaw tightened.
“What happened to the suspect?”
An officer approached.
“Lost him near the west stairwell. He ditched the jacket.”
Ethan swore under his breath.
“Cameras?”
“Power interruption affected this floor. Lobby cameras should still have something.”
I stared at the bag.
In my first life, none of this evidence had been discovered.
Because Claire had opened the door.
Because the attacker never needed to break in.
Dad and Mom arrived fifteen minutes later.
Dad came through the hallway in pajama pants and a winter coat.
Mom was still wearing slippers.
The moment she saw Claire, she wrapped both daughters in her arms.
“What happened?”
Claire looked at me.
I couldn't explain.
Not yet.
Dad inspected the damaged lock, then the bag.
His expression changed from fear to something colder.
“Who called the police?”
Ethan nodded toward me.
“Lily.”
Dad stared.
“My nine-year-old?”
I lowered my eyes.
Claire crouched beside me.
“She knew something was wrong.”
“How?”
Nobody answered.
Because there wasn't an answer anyone could accept.
Detective Marcus Reed arrived shortly after midnight.
He interviewed Claire first.
Then me.
“Lily,” he said gently, “why did you think your sister would be kidnapped?”
I looked at his notebook.
“I had a nightmare.”
Claire shifted beside me.
“A nightmare?”
“Yes.”
“What happened in it?”
I swallowed.
“Claire went downstairs for food.”
“What else?”
“She disappeared.”
Detective Reed studied me carefully.
“Did you recognize the man outside?”
“No.”
“Did someone tell you something might happen?”
“No.”
“Did you see someone watching your sister recently?”
That question landed differently.
Watching Claire.
In my first life, we'd focused entirely on that delivery.
Dad had spent years hunting the delivery account.
But what if the night hadn't begun with an order?
What if someone had watched her first?
I turned to Claire.
“Has anyone been following you?”
She frowned.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I think I'd notice.”
But her voice wasn't convincing.
Ethan noticed too.
“Think.”
Claire rubbed her hands together.
“There was a car.”
“What car?” Detective Reed asked.
“A dark SUV. Maybe gray. I saw it near campus twice this week.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“Once near the library. Once outside our building.”
Ethan sat straighter.
“You never told me that.”
“Because I thought it was nothing.”
Detective Reed wrote quickly.
“Driver?”
“Couldn't see.”
“License plate?”
“No.”
“Any strangers contacting you online?”
Claire hesitated.
Then she unlocked her phone.
“There were messages.”
Ethan frowned.
“What messages?”
“Just weird ones.”
“Claire.”
“I thought they were spam.”
She opened an app.
Several messages came from accounts with no profile photos.
Pretty girl.
Saw you near Westbridge today.
You should smile more.
The oldest message was almost three weeks old.
Ethan's face drained of color.
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
Claire became defensive.
“Because women get creepy messages all the time, Ethan.”
“That doesn't make them safe.”
“I know that now.”
Dad turned away, furious—not at her, but at himself.
Mom sat beside Claire.
“Anything else?”
Claire scrolled.
One message was different.
You always order late on Thursdays.
Nobody spoke.
Detective Reed leaned closer.
“What day is today?”
Claire whispered, “Thursday.”
The apartment suddenly felt colder.
The attacker hadn't randomly selected a delivery.
He knew her routine.
He knew her name.
He knew her apartment.
He knew when she ordered food.
Someone had studied my sister.
My first life hadn't started the night Claire disappeared.
It had started weeks earlier.
And we had never known.
Police searched the building until almost dawn.
They recovered the abandoned delivery jacket and helmet from a stairwell.
The account belonged to a legitimate delivery driver named Victor Harris.
But Victor Harris wasn't the man outside.
The real Victor had reported his motorcycle and phone stolen nine days earlier.
Nine days.
Exactly the period with no new customer reviews.
Someone had stolen his identity.
At 4:30 a.m., detectives found another detail.
The power hadn't failed naturally.
A breaker box on the maintenance level had been opened with a copied service key.
Dad stared at Detective Reed.
“So we're talking about someone who planned this.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“We don't know.”
Dad's voice hardened.
“You'd better find out.”
Claire sat at the dining table wrapped in a blanket.
The adrenaline had disappeared.
Now she looked seventeen again.
Scared.
Ethan placed a cup of tea in front of her.
She didn't touch it.
I sat beside her, unwilling to move more than a few inches away.
At sunrise, Dad said something that changed everything.
“We're leaving this apartment.”
Claire looked up.
“What?”
“Today.”
“We can't just—”
“Yes, we can.”
“My school—”
“Claire.”
His voice cracked.
Dad rarely raised his voice.
This wasn't anger.
It was terror.
“Somebody came to our home carrying restraints and tried to break through our door. We're not arguing about rent or convenience.”
Claire fell silent.
Mom squeezed his hand.
For once, everyone agreed.
Everyone except me.
Because I knew moving wouldn't be enough.
In my first life, Dad had spent years searching.
He found nothing.
If we simply ran now, perhaps the man outside would vanish.
Then someday he might find Claire again.
Or someone else.
I needed to know who he was.
And why Claire.
While the adults packed essentials, I wandered toward the hallway.
A police evidence marker still sat beside a scratch near the doorframe.
I crouched.
There was something underneath the shoe cabinet.
Small.
Black.
Not part of our furniture.
I reached under.
Pulled it free.
A tiny plastic rectangle.
I thought it was a broken clip.
Then I saw the lens.
A camera.
My stomach dropped.
“Ethan!”
He came running.
I held it out.
His expression changed instantly.
“Don't touch anything else.”
Detective Reed returned.
Within minutes, officers were photographing the device.
It had been attached beneath the shoe cabinet facing the apartment hallway.
Dad stared at it in horror.
“How long has that been there?”
Nobody knew.
The device wasn't broadcasting.
It stored footage on a small memory card.
At the station later that morning, Detective Reed called Dad.
The card contained eleven days of motion-triggered recordings.
Claire leaving for school.
Claire returning.
Mom taking groceries inside.
Dad going to work.
Me leaving for elementary school.
Every person in our family.
But most clips followed one pattern.
Claire.
Then, near the end of the final recording, a man appeared.
Not the attacker.
Someone else.
He wore a baseball cap and maintenance uniform.
He crouched beside the camera.
Looked directly into the lens.
And removed the memory card.
Except he hadn't noticed the second backup card.
Detective Reed froze the frame.
Claire stared at the screen.
Her breath stopped.
“I know him.”
Ethan turned.
“Who?”
Claire pointed.
“He works at my treatment volunteer center.”
Dad frowned.
“What treatment center?”
Claire looked down.
“The youth counseling clinic where I volunteer on Saturdays.”
“Name?”
She whispered it.
“Daniel Cross.”
I had never heard the name in my first life.
But Dad had.
I knew because the moment Claire said it, his face went completely white.
“Robert?” Mom asked.
Dad didn't answer.
Detective Reed looked at him.
“You recognize him?”
Dad slowly sat down.
“Yes.”
“From where?”
He stared at Claire.
Then at me.
And said the sentence that opened a door none of us knew existed.
“Daniel Cross used to work for me.”
---