The footsteps stopped.
Silence crept back in like a shadow slipping through the cracks in the floorboards. Elara stood frozen in the foyer, every nerve on edge. Her fingers twitched by her side, searching out the phantom weight of a gun she no longer carried. Instinct screamed that she wasn't alone, that the house was holding its breath along with her.
Then a voice floated down from above.
"You're not supposed to be here."
Male. Calm. No fear, no hesitation. Too composed.
Her heart jumped, but she kept her posture still. Footsteps followed, slow and unhurried, each one tapping against the wood with almost deliberate rhythm. Whoever it was wanted her to hear him coming.
Elara turned to the staircase just as a figure appeared at the top.
He was tall and lean, maybe nineteen or twenty, with dark curls that fell across his forehead and sharp eyes that didn't flinch. He wore a worn black hoodie and gray joggers, like someone who hadn't expected company but the steadiness in his gaze suggested otherwise.
He looked at her as if he'd been expecting this moment.
"Elara?" he asked, voice soft but curious.
Her breath hitched. That name didn't belong here; not in Evelyn's world.
He smiled faintly, catching the flicker of recognition in her eyes.
"Or is it Evelyn now?" he added, descending a few steps, hands in his pockets.
"You know who I am?" she asked, voice even.
"I know who she was," he replied, tone shifting. "You? Not quite sure yet."
She didn't answer. She studied his posture, his pace, the way he didn't break eye contact. This wasn't a scared teenager stumbling into an awkward reunion. This was someone with answers and he was playing a game.
"And you are?" she asked.
"Kade," he said simply. "I was Evelyn's friend."
The pause he left between words didn't go unnoticed.
"Friend," she repeated skeptically.
He gave a low laugh. "Well. Depending on who you ask, I might've been a bad influence. But Evelyn liked that."
He reached the base of the stairs and walked past her, slow and deliberate, brushing the edge of her shoulder with casual boldness. She caught a faint whiff of cedar and something faintly metallic.
He circled the edge of the foyer, glancing briefly at the family portraits on the wall lingering just long enough to make her uncomfortable.
"You don't remember me, do you?" he asked.
"Should I?"
"Maybe," he said. "Maybe not. Evelyn had secrets. Lots of them. The kind that keep you awake at night."
Elara didn't reply. She watched the way his eyes moved never resting, always scanning. She'd seen that look before in suspects trying to figure out how much the detective knew.
"She jumped," Kade said suddenly, voice quiet. "Not because she was broken, not because she gave up. She had a reason."
Elara raised an eyebrow. "And you know what that reason was?"
Kade tilted his head toward her. "Not exactly. But I know what she was running from."
He paused, his eyes flicking toward the staircase.
"She was scared, Elara. Paranoid. And not just about her family. About people she trusted. People like me."
That earned her full attention.
He smiled without humor. "Don't worry. I didn't kill her, if that's what you're thinking. But if you're wearing her face now, you're a target too. That makes us... allies. For now."
She narrowed her eyes. "You said my name earlier. How?"
He met her gaze with something like pity.
"Evelyn told me about you," he said. "Before she died."
The floor seemed to shift under her feet.
"I never met her," Elara said. "Not until..."
"I know," Kade interrupted. "That's the part that gets weird, right?"
He stepped toward the door, hand on the knob.
"You want answers?" he asked, without looking back. "Start in the red room. Second floor end of the left hall. Evelyn left something there. For you."
He opened the door and stepped out into the morning fog vanishing before she could demand more.
The silence left behind was heavier than before.
The red room.
Elara didn't waste time. Her pulse had quickened, but she moved with the quiet control of someone used to tension. Each step up the stairs creaked beneath her, the old house whispering secrets it had no right to know.
The second floor was darker, as if light had no business here. She found the hallway easily left side just like Kade said. Five doors, each one closed. At the very end, a faded rose-red door with a gold handle waited.
She opened it slowly.
The room was drenched in crimson hues red drapes, red carpet and deep wine-colored bedspread. It felt more like a set than a place someone would sleep.
A desk sat near the window, cluttered with papers and a single worn notebook in the center.
Elara approached it carefully. She flipped open the cover.
The handwriting was delicate and neat.
"If you're reading this. I didn't make it."
Her fingers trembled.
"My name is Evelyn Moreau. And someone is trying to erase me. I don't know who I can trust anymore, but I know I'm not safe. If you found this it means you are me or you're something worse. God help us both."
Below it was a name.
Elara Gray.
Her own.
Evelyn had known. Somehow, she had known.
Elara looked up, her reflection flickering faintly in the windowpanel, not her true face, but Evelyn's. Pale. Young. Haunted.
The girl in the water.
The mystery wasn't just about a dead girl anymore.
It was about why she'd been waiting for Elara all along.