Chapter Four: Confronting Daniel
570 Words
The street was too quiet when Clara stepped outside.
The morning air carried a brittle tension, like a thread stretched too tight. Her coat was zipped, the photo from the attic tucked into an inside pocket, her fingers wrapped tight around the folded notebook page with her name. She didn’t hesitate.
Number 11. Daniel Reyes.
She’d memorized the address when she first moved in—subconsciously cataloging threats, allies, and exits. His was a modest brick house with an ivy-covered fence and a cracked front step. A security camera blinked lazily above the door.
Clara knocked.
No answer.
She knocked again—harder. This time, she heard movement. Then the slow scrape of the deadbolt. The door opened halfway.
Daniel blinked at her, wearing yesterday’s jacket and a skeptical frown. “Clara?”
She didn’t waste time.
“I found your photograph,” she said. “In my attic. Along with a box full of clippings about your brother’s disappearance.”
His face went flat.
“You want to come in,” he said after a beat, “or do you want the whole street listening?”
Inside, the house was dim. Clean but impersonal. The kind of place lived in by someone who didn’t expect to stay. He led her to a small sitting room with mismatched furniture and an old record player humming quietly in the corner.
Clara stood by the window. “You’ve been in my attic.”
“No,” Daniel said. “But someone else has.”
She tossed the photo onto his coffee table. “This was taken two days ago. From a second-story angle. Either you were in the house, or someone was.”
Daniel sat, rubbing his jaw. “When I was a kid, I used to sneak into that house with my brother, Lucas. Before he vanished.”
Clara’s expression didn’t change.
He went on. “We thought it was haunted. The attic especially. There were voices. Cold spots. Once, we swore we heard crying in the walls.”
“You think that’s what took him?”
Daniel didn’t answer. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a battered leather folder. Inside were more photos—grainy images, floor plans, security stills. A black-and-white image of a woman walking through an alley. It was blurry, but the coat was unmistakable.
It was Clara.
“Why are you following me?” she asked.
“I wasn’t,” Daniel said. “You showed up. In the house. In the attic where my brother disappeared. That’s not a coincidence.”
She leaned forward, voice like ice. “You don’t know who I am.”
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t. But I know you’re not just some woman who moved into a bad-luck house.”
She turned to leave, but he stopped her.
“You found the doll, didn’t you?”
Clara froze.
He stood. “She belonged to the woman who lived there before. Evelyn Rhys. She lost her daughter in that house. Said she still heard her footsteps in the attic.”
Clara turned slowly. “And what happened to Evelyn?”
Daniel’s voice dropped. “She hung herself in the guest bedroom. Two weeks after the girl vanished.”
They locked eyes.
Neither of them trusted the other.
But now they both knew: the attic wasn’t empty.
And they weren’t alone on Larkspur Drive.
- Writer
