Page 28 of Callum

Against my better judgment, I reach for my phone and pull up the app that shows all the video feeds around my house. I moved one of the external cameras to face the window, then put another inside the room, telling myself it was in case she tried to sneak out.

I’ve been having to justify a lot of suspicious decisions over the last thirty hours.

The slightly grainy video shows Rosalind pacing the length of the office, the flat of the knife blade bouncing against her palm as she spins to move back in the direction she came from.

Just when I’m about to shut off the camera, she finally breaks the pattern, stopping next to the closet. The door swings open away from the entrance to the bedroom, and I see the wheels turning in her brain.

She’s going to hide in the closet.

“Come on, kitten.” I sigh into the darkness, shaking my head. She’s better than that, and we both know it. Rosalind pulls the stack of bedding from the closet, her eyes lingering on the hot pink sheet trapped between the thicker blankets as she limps toward the air mattress. I think she’s trying to make it look like a person is sleeping under the covers.

She is not successful.

Rosalind doesn’t seem to share in my skepticism over the believability of her work, straightening to her full height to look down at the mattress. She nods once before moving toward the closet again. Stepping inside, she pulls the door behind her until there’s only a crack left for her to peek through.

A laugh passes my lips as I turn off the phone screen, dropping the device on my nightstand. If she wants to spend the night crouched in a closet to try and surprise me come morning, that’s her fucking prerogative.

What if that isn’t her plan, though?

Rosalind is no idiot. She knows that I’ll be expecting her. She might even know about the camera in the corner of the room. It isn’t as if I went out of my way to hide it.

What’s she planning?

I’m reaching for my phone when it lights up with a notification.

EXTERIOR MOTION ALERT

Opening the app takes me straight to a live feed of my driveway, showing two figures traipsing through the shadows. They move quickly, though not particularly gracefully, creeping up to the house along the right side.

Within the span of a single breath, I grab my gun from its holster and move to the far corner of the room. I watch them jog along the exterior wall until they’re a mere foot away from my bedroom window. Shutting off my phone screen, I patiently wait for the darkened figures to approach.

The first shadow stops to peer through the window, but the second passes behind them without slowing their pace. I can’t make out any features of the person with their face pressed to the glass other than the fact that they’re small. Smaller than you’d expect a grown man to be, making me think they’re either children or women.

Several shallow breaths later, they move on, seemingly satisfied that my room is empty. As soon as the second being moves out of sight, I pull the cameras up again, tracking their progress around the back of the house.

My feet move on muscle memory alone.

Heel, toe. Heel, toe.

Silent.

The bedroom door opens just as quietly, the well-oiled hinges gliding seamlessly against one another. I’m across the hall with my hand on the office doorknob when I stop.

Grant said he wanted the GiGi’s to come for her and needed me here to ask the right questions when they did. That’s the only thing keeping me from busting into the room and dragging Rosalind out of that closet.

My eyes flick to the phone screen again, watching as the first shadow passes Rosalind’s window without so much as a glance. The second person seems brighter than the first, or at least more keen, taking a second to look through the darkened glass. I see the moment they realize there’s a lumpy mattress on the floor of the room.

The person at the window makes several desperate hand motions at the other’s back to no avail. They give up, deciding to break into the room on their own, most likely hoping their companion will figure it out eventually. Sure enough, they’re halfway through prying open the window when the first shadow arrives at their side.

Breaking into a window without making a fuck ton of noise is a skill. It is not a skill either of these people seem to have.

I pull up the camera inside the office to check on Rosalind, and I spot her concerned face in the crack between the closet door and the wall. She’s debating her options but doesn’t seem to like the conclusion she’s coming to. She won’t be able to see the people at the window without opening the closet door, and she can’t risk them seeing movement inside the room before she’s ready.

“Come on, kitten,” I whisper for the second time this evening, willing her to make the right choice. My voice is lost to the sound of the window pane cracking under their attempts to shimmy it open.

I roll my eyes at the empty hall. A sugared-up toddler could move around without making this much noise.

Rosalind crouches in the closet as the two people climb into the room—the first moves toward the bed as the second wiggles through the window. In situations like these, timing is everything, but it doesn’t appear to be on Rosalind’s side. The first person gets to the bed just as the second lands in the room, and I hear them speaking to one another.

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