On the plus side, she had just enough years in her work life left to rehabilitate her retirement savings. There was a knock at the door, and three more in even succession. Renea froze.
Silence strummed a hollow chord in the echo chamber of her head. I will win if I keep still. Her brother should be onto another part of the house to seek their cousin, who would be giving himself away with giggles by now. Tension stretched taut between the decades.
She waited for the sound of victory in the resigned retracing of footsteps. Are you there? To the door she must go. A familiar starched navy on the other side of the peephole foreshadowed what would come next. Despite knowing at the first knock that the presence in the hallway was yet another outgrowth of the shape-shifter that possessed her daughter, dread dropped like a cannonball through her body. It tore past her clamoring heart, gutted her viscera, and plowed through the floorboards. Placid expression, even tone, an exhalation of ennui.
Renea waved him in for the requisite inventorying of her studio apartment. Casey had attempted to steal a package from the lobby. Apparently, the sister of a woman who lived in the building had held open the door for Casey, unaware that tenants were under strict orders from the landlord to never let in people off the street.
They called the landlord, who checked the security camera in time to see Casey hauling out a large box. Officer Aquino apprehended her two blocks away from the building. He sequestered Casey in the patrol car before delivering the box to its intended recipient, a divorced dad in his thirties named Derek. Nah, just tell her to get some help. Had Renea known this, she would have laughed. He balked at the last minute, citing a conflict because he was romantically interested in Renea.
