Chapter 2 - The House With No Water
Claire drove home through Coyote Wash with both hands locked around the wheel. The Mercer house sat on a rise above the dry riverbed, its white paint faded by wind and years of sun. Nolan had planted blue salvias along the porch.
They had wilted the morning after his death. The front door was unlocked. Claire stopped beneath the porch light and listened.
The house answered with the creak of cooling wood.
“Ethan?” she called.
No one replied. She entered slowly. The lamps were off.
Drawers stood open in the kitchen, and Nolan’s desk had been pulled away from the wall. A pile of papers lay scattered across the floor like dead leaves. Claire stepped over them and saw the wet footprint.
It began beside the back door and ended in the hallway. The floor around it was dry.
She reached for the pistol Nolan kept in the hall cabinet, but a voice behind her said, “If I meant to hurt you, you would already be hurt.”
Claire spun around. Daniel stood in the doorway with his hands visible. He had removed his jacket.
Dust streaked one sleeve.
“How did you get in?”
“The back door was open.”
“You mean the door you opened.”
His gaze moved across the room.
“Someone searched the house.”
“I noticed.”
“Did they take anything?”
Claire laughed sharply.
“You tell me.”
Daniel looked toward the desk.
“Nolan mentioned a project called Bluebird.”
The word moved through the room like a draft.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You knew enough to say it.”
Daniel walked to the desk but did not touch it.
“Nolan came to my office two weeks before he died. He asked for copies of water transfer records. He believed the Mercer Water Trust was being used to move land without the owners’ knowledge.” “And you helped him?” “I told him to stop.” Claire felt something inside her harden.
“Why?”
“Because people who fight the Vale family usually lose.”
“That sounds like a confession.”
“It is a warning.”
The sound of a car engine rose outside. Daniel turned toward the window. Headlights swept across the living room and vanished.
Claire stepped closer to him.
“Why are you really here?”
He looked down at her. They had known each other since high school, back when the Vale name had not yet become a wall between them. Daniel had once kissed her behind the feed store and then spent a month avoiding her because his father had found out.
“Because Nolan asked me to protect you,” he said.
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Claire’s breath caught.
“What did he say?”
Daniel’s eyes flicked toward the hall. The upstairs floorboard creaked. They both looked up.
Daniel moved first. He grabbed Claire’s wrist and pulled her behind the kitchen wall as footsteps crossed the ceiling above them. Claire wanted to fight him, but the footsteps stopped directly over Wren’s bedroom.
A drawer opened. Then came the soft scrape of something heavy being dragged. Daniel put one finger against his lips.
They waited. A minute later, the back door slammed. By the time Daniel reached it, the yard was empty.
Claire ran upstairs. Wren’s room had been searched. Her stuffed rabbit lay on the floor with its belly torn open.
The mattress had been lifted. The framed photograph of Nolan and Wren was missing. On the wall above the bed, someone had written in blue chalk:BLUEBIRD FLIES BEFORE DAWN.
Claire touched the words. The chalk smeared across her fingers.
“What does it mean?” Daniel asked from the doorway.
She turned toward him.
“You tell me.”
His phone rang again. This time, he answered on speaker without looking at the screen. Vivian’s voice came through, calm and polished.
“Daniel, the judge moved the custody hearing to tomorrow morning.”
Claire felt the blood leave her face.
Vivian continued, “And tell Claire that Wren is asking for her. If Claire wants to see her daughter again, she should bring the Bluebird key.”
The line went dead. Daniel stared at Claire.
May you like
“There is no key,” he said.
From beneath the floorboards, something knocked three times.
