The Stranger Knew Something About Our House

Daniel stared at his mother.

“Who is that man?”

The stranger entered the room behind us.

“My name is Aaron.”

He opened the folder.

“I work for the property management company that handled this house before you bought it.”

Daniel frowned.

“What does that have to do with us?”

Aaron removed an old photograph.

It showed our house.

Except something was different.

There was another door in the basement.

A door we’d never seen.

Aaron explained that the basement had once been divided into two sections.

Behind what now appeared to be an ordinary wall was a hidden storage room.

According to old property records, documents had been stored there.

But something about that space had never been properly resolved when the house changed ownership.

More disturbing was what Aaron told us next.

Someone had apparently been accessing it.

Recently.

Daniel slowly turned toward Monica.

“Why do you know about this?”

She remained silent.

Aaron answered instead.

“She contacted me.”

Monica Had Planned the Entire Evening

My stomach dropped.

“You knew him?”

Monica finally looked at us.

“I was trying to protect you.”

“By bringing a stranger into our house?”

“No.”

Her voice trembled.

“By making sure you weren’t here.”

Daniel stared at her.

“Why?”

For the first time that evening, Monica looked genuinely frightened.

“Because someone has been watching this house.”

Nobody spoke.

Aaron said he’d noticed suspicious activity connected with the property several weeks earlier.

Someone appeared to be entering the old storage area.

He didn’t know who.

Then Monica found a strange envelope in our mailbox.

Instead of telling us, she started investigating on her own.

But she’d kept something else secret.

She had repeatedly noticed an unfamiliar man near our home.

And that man wasn’t Aaron.

Someone Had Been Watching Us for Weeks

Aaron opened his folder again.

Inside were photographs.

Our house.

Our car.

Daniel leaving for work.

And then one of me.

I was carrying Emma.

My blood ran cold.

“How long has this been happening?”

“Almost six weeks,” Aaron replied.

Monica began crying.

“I thought I could handle it.”

“You should have told us!”

“I was afraid you’d panic.”

“You brought someone into our home while you were watching our daughter!”

“I never put Emma in danger.”

Aaron interrupted.

“You need to see the last photograph.”

He placed another picture on the table.

It had been taken that afternoon.

A man stood beside our fence.

But it wasn’t the man’s face that frightened me.

It was what he was holding.

A key.

Aaron looked directly at Daniel.

“That key opens the basement room.”

Then We Heard Something Downstairs

Every person in the room turned toward the basement.

A metallic sound echoed from below.

It sounded unmistakably like a door closing.

Someone was inside.

Daniel grabbed his phone.

Aaron moved toward the stairs.

Then Monica whispered something that made all of us freeze.

“I thought he had stopped.”

I stared at her.

“Who?”

Her face went pale.

“The person who’s been trying to get into this house.”

Suddenly, the basement light went out.

Then my phone buzzed.

The baby monitor had come back online.

I looked at the screen.

Emma was peacefully asleep in her crib.

For half a second, relief washed over me.

Then I noticed the dark window behind her.

There was a reflection in the glass.

A human silhouette.

Someone was standing in the nursery doorway.

I slowly looked around the room at Daniel, Monica, and Aaron.

We were all together.

None of us was upstairs.

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