Chapter 4 - The Second Visitor
Saturday morning arrived with a thin, hard frost that coated the grass in the front yard like pulverized glass.
I didn't sleep. I sat in the armchair in the living room with Arthur’s old hunting rifle—a twelve-gauge Remington he hadn't fired since 2012—resting across my lap. It wasn't loaded; I didn't even know where Arthur had kept the shells after he got sick. But the cold steel of the barrel under my palm felt like the only solid thing left in the world.
At 9:48 AM, a dark blue sedan with tinted windows pulled into my driveway.
It didn't park on the street. It pulled all the way up to the garage doors, blocking my Subaru from behind.
A man stepped out of the driver's side. He was tall, perhaps forty, wearing an expensive camel-hair coat that looked entirely out of place against the salt-stained pavement of Elmhurst Lane. He carried a thin leather portfolio under his arm and wore thin, rimless glasses that reflected the morning frost.
He didn't knock on the front door. He walked straight to the side porch, pulled a small silver key from his pocket, and inserted it into the old lock—the lock that Sergeant Callahan hadn't changed because it led to the mudroom, not the front entrance.
The latch clicked open.
"Mrs. Ward?" the man called out, his voice matching the voice from the voicemail with horrifying precision. "I'm Mr. Vance. We spoke via message yesterday."
I stayed in the armchair, shifting the rifle so the stock rested firmly against my hip.
He walked into the living room, stepping over the yellow tape measure that still lay on the rug. He didn't look surprised to see me, nor did he look surprised by the rifle in my hands. His eyes briefly swept over the weapon, noted the lack of a safety engage sound, and returned to my face.
"That's a Model 870," he said softly, standing five feet away near the dining room table. "Arthur bought that at Cabela's in September of 2008. He never kept ammunition in the house after Mark's second arrest in high school. You know that, Mrs. Ward."
My hand tightened on the wooden stock. "How do you know that?"
"We perform comprehensive background audits on all our host families," Vance said, opening his leather portfolio and pulling out a thick sheaf of documents printed on heavy, cream-colored paper. "When Chloe applied for the Aethelgard protocol, she provided us with thirty years of family tax returns, medical histories, and home ownership deeds. We know this house better than your son does."
He set the papers on the dining table, adjusting his glasses with two fingers.
"Your daughter is currently in the Hennepin County Detention Facility," Vance continued, his voice smooth and measured. "Her bail has been set at fifty thousand dollars. Mark’s bail is thirty thousand. Neither of them has five hundred dollars in liquid assets. They will remain in custody until their trial in March."
"Good," I said.
"Is it?" Vance smiled slightly—a cold, professional gesture that didn't reach his grey eyes. "If they remain in custody, the state will begin a forensic audit of Mark’s sports bar enterprise. They will find forty-two instances of forged signatures on state tax documents—signatures bearing Arthur’s name, executed three months after Arthur was declared mentally incompetent by his oncologist."
My stomach turned over, the ache in my ribs spreading into a deep, sickening nausea.
"Arthur never signed anything for Mark's bar," I whispered.
"Mark signed them," Vance said simply. "He forged his father’s handwriting to secure eighteen different short-term high-yield loans from private lenders. When the state discovers that, Mark won't be looking at twelve months for third-degree assault. He will be looking at fifteen years in a federal facility for mail fraud and identity theft."
Vance tapped the papers on the table.
"However," he said, "Aethelgard has already purchased those debts from the primary lenders. We hold the paper, Mrs. Ward. We hold Mark’s life in our filing cabinet in Wilmington."
"What do you want?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
"The broadcast," Vance said. "We have eighty-four thousand subscribers waiting for the conclusion of the Somatic Reduction Protocol. They have paid for six hours of live stream content demonstrating the final phase of the treatment."
"I am bruised and broken," I shouted, my voice cracking as I stood up, the rifle heavy in my hands. "My ribs are fractured! They beat me with a stick!"
"And that," Vance said, his eyes narrowing slightly, "is precisely what makes the baseline so compelling. The protocol promises recovery from extreme somatic trauma through our proprietary frequency therapy. If you sit in that chair for six hours today, if you follow the script we provide, and if you demonstrate the use of the device on those injuries, the debt is cleared. Mark’s records are destroyed. Chloe’s bail is posted by twelve-thirty PM."
May you like
He stepped closer, reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small black cylinder—no larger than a cigar—tipped with a smooth, dark blue glass lens.
"All you have to do, Mrs. Ward," he said softly, "is be cured."
