Sleeping with One Eye Open

The whine of the drill was deafening, a high-pitched scream tearing through the kitchen. Elena backed away, her hands up, the cold air from the open door biting at her back.

“Julian,” she shouted over the noise. “You can’t just break into the safe! Dad is right upstairs!”

Julian ignored her. He was leaning against the counter, watching the locksmith work with the intensity of a starving man watching a meal being prepared. He looked feral. The dust from the study coated his suit like grave dirt, and his eyes were manic.

The locksmith paused, wiping sweat from his forehead with a rag. “It’s a high-security model, Mr. Vance. Gonna take a few minutes to get through the plate. You sure you don’t want to try the combination one more time?”

“I told you,” Julian snapped. “He forgot it. Just drill the damn thing.”

The locksmith shrugged and pressed the bit back against the metal. The screaming resumed.

Elena’s mind raced. The safe in the library. Arthur kept his bonds there, his emergency cash. But he also kept his leverage. If Julian found something before she could get away…

She looked at the open back door. The driveway was dark. Her car was parked around the front, but the keys were in her pocket. She could run. She could leave this house, leave the madness, leave the letters and the forgery and the photo.

But she couldn't leave Arthur.

Not because she loved him. But because he was the only witness who could confirm what was in the safe.

She slipped out the door while Julian’s back was turned. She didn't run to her car. She ran around the side of the house, staying in the shadows of the azalea bushes, until she reached the library window.

The curtains were drawn, but there was a gap.

She peered inside. The locksmith was focused on the safe, sparks flying as the drill bit ate into the steel. Julian was pacing, checking his watch every ten seconds.

Elena moved to the next window. The study.

It was dark, but the moonlight filtering in showed the devastation. Drawers upturned. Books pulled from shelves. The carpet was littered with papers. Julian had been thorough.

She continued around the house to the front. The police cruiser was gone. The street was quiet.

She needed a place to hide. A place to think. A place where she could open the shoebox again and find the ammunition she needed to stop Julian.

She looked up at the house. The third floor. The attic.

Arthur had given her the key to the attic hours ago, before the chaos started. It was still in her pocket.

The attic was the one place Julian wouldn't look. He hated the dust. He hated the heat. He hadn't been up there since they were children playing hide-and-seek.

Elena let herself back in through the front door, moving as silently as Arthur’s wheelchair. The sound of the drill covered her footsteps on the stairs.

She reached the second-floor landing. The door to Arthur’s room was closed. Silence.

She climbed the narrow, steep stairs to the third floor. The air grew hotter, thicker. It smelled of cedar and time.

She reached the attic door. It was locked, a heavy padlock hanging from the hasp.

She pulled out the key Arthur had hidden under his seat. It slid into the lock with a satisfying click.

She pushed the door open.

The attic was a cavern of shadows. Stacks of furniture draped in white sheets looked like ghosts in the moonlight. Boxes were piled ceiling-high, a labyrinth of memories Arthur had decided to keep but not to see.

Elena stepped inside and closed the door, locking it from the inside. She was safe. For now.

She sat on a trunk near the window, pulling her knees to her chest. She took the tote bag off her shoulder.

She had to be fast. She had to find something in the letters that would stop Julian. Something about money. Something about him.

She pulled out the stack from 1998. The year Julian graduated college.

She opened an envelope.

*I heard about Julian’s trouble,* Meredith wrote. *Gambling is a sickness, Elena. Just like drinking. Tell him I’m praying for him. Tell him his father paid the debt, but he bought his soul.*

Elena froze. Gambling debt. Arthur had paid it off.

She grabbed another letter. 2002.

*He’s using the trust fund to cover the losses, isn't he? I can see it in the financial statements Arthur sends me to brag. Julian is bleeding the estate dry.*

Elena’s hands shook. Julian wasn't looking for the ledger to protect Arthur. He was looking for it to destroy the evidence of his own theft. He had been embezzling from the family trust for decades, and Arthur had let him do it—as long as Julian stayed loyal.

But now Arthur was dying. And if the estate was audited…

Elena stood up. She had the leverage.

But as she turned, her foot hit something on the floor. A loose board.

It rattled.

She looked down. The board was slightly askew.

She knelt and pried it up.

Beneath the floorboards, nestled in the insulation, was a small, gray box.

Not a shoebox. A security system control panel.

It was wired into the house's main line. The lights on the panel were green. Active.

Elena frowned. Why would there be a security panel in the floor of the attic?

She looked closer. There was a label on the wire. *Perimeter Breach - Silent Alarm.*

And next to it, a small speaker.

*Beep. Beep. Beep.*

The sound was faint, rhythmic.

It wasn't coming from the box. It was coming from downstairs.

Someone was punching a code into the front door keypad.

*Beep. Beep. Beep. Click.*

The front door opened.

Someone was coming in.