The Ghost In His House

Chapter 3:The Locked Room

At 3:07 a.m., a man screamed in his sleep, and Mia Carter was already running. She had been lying awake, staring at the photograph under her pillow. “I SEE YOU.”

Then the sound cut through the wall, raw and terrible and her body moved before her mind did.

She ran up the stairs, down the hall and shoved open his bedroom door. Ethan sat bolt upright in bed, gasping, his shirt soaked with sweat. His eyes were open but he wasn't seeing her.

"Daniel," he choked.

"Don't go in there. Daniel!"

"Ethan." Mia crossed the room and took his shaking hands.

"It's Mia. You're home and you're safe."

He stared at her. Slowly, the nightmare drained out of his face untill only shame remained.

"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely.

"I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't. I was awake." She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Breathe with me. In, out. That's it."

His chest rose and fell, rough at first, then slower. Her hands were small and steady around his and he held on as if she were the only solid thing in the room.

“I shouldn't be here”, Mia thought. “I should be searching, planning, doing my job.” But she didn't move.

She brought him water, then she sat in the armchair by the window, and neither of them spoke for a while. The moon lay pale across the floor.

"It's the same dream every time," Ethan said at last.

"A hallway, a door. Daniel walks in and I can't reach him."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not only Daniel." He gave a dry, tired laugh. "My mother left on her birthday. March fourteenth when I was twelve. I waited on the porch with a cake I had made myself, and it was terrible, and she never came." He looked at the ceiling.

"Some years I forget the date. Then the dreams start, and I remember."

Mia's chest tightened.

“March fourteenth.”

“Mother's birthday, reversed.” She heard the words from the notebook as clearly as if someone had spoken them. Her stomach turned over.

He had just handed her the key. He had no idea, and it was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for her, and the cruelest.

"That cake," she said softly.

"Was it really terrible?" Ethan blinked. Then, to her surprise, he laughed, a real one.

"It was chocolate. I used salt instead of sugar."

"Oh, Ethan."

"I ate three slices anyway. I was very stubborn."

Mia laughed too, quiet and helpless with tears in her eyes.

The two of them sat in the dark, laughing at a cake from nineteen years ago, and for one moment, the room felt warm.

“Remember this”, she told herself.

“Remember what it feels like.” She had no idea why.

At dawn, she went hunting. She waited until Ethan's car left the gate and then she walked into the study, closed the door, and stood in the center of the room.

“The photograph was taken from here. From inside. So where is the camera?”

She searched slowly. She checked the shelves, the lamp, the picture frames.

She ran her fingers along the ceiling and stopped at the smoke detector.

It looked ordinary but the tiny grille at its edge caught the light in a way it shouldn't.

She climbed onto the desk and twisted it loose and behind the plastic cover sat a lens the size of a grain of rice. Cheap, battery-powered though not Ethan's work. His cameras were wired, hidden, expensive.

This was Black Circle equipment.

“They put it there before I arrived”, she realized. “Or after.” She crushed it under her heel and stood very still.

Someone else was inside this house, or had been. Someone who wanted her to know she was watched.

“Why?” she wondered. “Who are you?”

The house gave no answer.

Ethan noticed nothing when he came home that evening.

He noticed only the smell of garlic and rosemary, and Mia at the stove with her hair pinned up. She turned and gave him a tired smile.

"You look better," she said.

"I feel better."

"You should sleep."

"So should you. You look worse than I do."

She laughed. It was soft and a little strained.

“Poor girl”, Ethan thought.

“She's up half the night, cleaning my house, and I woke her at three in the morning with my screaming.” He wanted to do something for her. He didn't know what.

So he said, "Tomorrow, take the afternoon off. I'll cook." Mia turned from the stove.

"You cook?"

"Badly. But with confidence." She smiled properly this time and something inside him gave a small, warm, dangerous lurch.

He looked away and cleared his throat.

“Don't be an i***t. She's your housekeeper.”

But he was still smiling as he walked upstairs.

At midnight, Mia stood in front of the steel door.

The basement was cold and silent. The keypad glowed a dull green and above the frame, the small black camera watched her with its single eye.

She had already dealt with it. Ten minutes earlier, she had looped its feed, a trick she'd learned years ago.

For the next fifteen minutes, anyone watching would see an empty corridor.

“Fifteen minutes”, she thought. “That's all I get.”

Her finger hovered over the keypad.

“March fourteenth. Reversed.”

Zero three one four. Four one three zero.

She thought of the salted cake. Of a boy on a porch, of a man's big hands, shaking in hers.

“I'm sorry, Ethan.” She pressed the numbers.

“4. 1. 3. 0.” The keypad flashed green. Somewhere inside the door, a heavy lock slid back.

Mia held her breath. She pushed and the steel door swung open, slowly, without a sound.

She slipped inside and let the door close behind her. It was dark.

She found a switch and a single bulb flickered on. She stared.

It was a small, bare room. A metal desk, a row of empty shelves and a chair pushed back, as though someone had just stood up.

No files, no folders. Nothing.

The dust on the shelves had been wiped away in neat, fresh lines. Something had been taken. Very recently. She stepped forward, and her foot touched something on the floor.

A single sheet of paper. She picked it up. It was blank, except for one line, written in bright red ink she had seen before.

“TOO SLOW, GHOST.” Behind her, the steel door began to close.