Chapter 4 - The Man in the Foyer
The rain had turned into a steady, freezing mist by the time the headlights of Eleanor’s silver Lexus swept across the manicured rhododendrons at the foot of the driveway.
It was 9:22 PM.
Inside the Lexus, the mood was triumphant. I knew this because I was watching through the live feed of the newly installed Tri-State security camera mounted under the eaves of the two-car garage, viewing the high-definition video stream on my phone from the back seat of Julian’s Mercedes, parked two hundred yards away down the darkened street.
Violet was in the passenger seat, laughing, holding a glossy paper bag from an upscale boutique in Andover center. Eleanor was driving with one hand, a takeout container from Le Petit resting on the dashboard.
The Lexus pulled up to the front steps.
The brake lights flared red against the wet pavement.
Eleanor cut the engine. For several seconds, neither of them moved. The camera captured the sudden stillness in the vehicle. Even through the windshield, you could see Eleanor frowning, looking toward the house.
The house was illuminated from within, but it was... different.
There were no warm table lamps glowing in the living room windows. There were no heavy linen curtains framing the colonial glass. The front bay window—usually displaying a three-thousand-dollar crystal vase filled with imported lilies—was completely dark, a massive, hollow black rectangle cut into the white clapboard.
Violet opened her door, laughing loudly at something on her phone, and stepped out onto the gravel.
"Did Nora seriously turn off all the heat?" Violet’s voice came through the high-sensitivity microphone on the porch. "It looks like an abandoned funeral home. She is being so ridiculously melodramatic."
"She’s trying to make us feel guilty," Eleanor said, slamming her door with that heavy, decisive thud she used when she wanted the household to know she had arrived. She carried her designer purse in the crook of her elbow and the Le Petit bag in her hand. "She thinks if she sits in the dark and shivers, I’ll beg her to stay. Well, she’s mistaken. She’ll hand over the car keys tonight, or she’ll sleep in her sedan."
Violet bounded up the brick steps and grabbed the handle of the heavy front door.
She turned it. It didn't budge.
She frowned, pulling on the brass handle with both hands. "Mom, it’s locked. Nora never locks the front deadbolt before ten."
"She probably barred it from the inside like a hysterical child," Eleanor scoffed, climbing the steps with a heavy, irritated sigh. "Let me do it."
Eleanor reached into her purse, pulled out her gold-plated keychain, and slotted the house key into the lock.
It didn't go in.
She pushed harder. The key didn't slide into the cylinder; it met a solid wall of brass. Paul had replaced the entire mortise system with a high-security Medeco lock that had a completely different keyway profile.
"What is wrong with this stupid door?" Eleanor hissed, jiggling the key aggressively. "Did she jam something in the keyhole? Nora! Open this door right now!"
She struck the solid oak panel with the heel of her hand.
Violet stepped toward the digital keypad mounted to the right of the casing—the secondary keypad Arthur had installed for deliveries. Violet punched in her four-digit birthday: *0-9-1-4*.
A sharp, shrill *BEEP-BEEP-BEEP* cut through the damp night air.
A tiny red LED flashed three times, followed by a mechanical female voice from the keypad speaker: *ACCESS DENIED. INVALID CREDENTIALS. SYSTEM RESTRICTED.*
"What the hell?" Violet said, her voice dropping an octave, the childish arrogance slipping away to reveal the first tremor of panic. "Mom, the code didn't work."
"Nora!" Eleanor screamed, slamming both fists against the door now, completely abandoning her polished, country-club composure. "Nora Vance, unlock this door this instant! This is *my* house! Do you hear me? If you think you can lock me out of my own home after the disrespect you showed me tonight, you will be out on the street with nothing! Not a dime! Not a reference! Open this door!"
A heavy mechanical *CLACK* sounded from inside the foyer.
The deadbolt retracted.
Eleanor let out a sharp, triumphant breath. "That’s what I thought," she muttered to Violet, smoothing her coat. "She just needed to be reminded who holds the power."
Eleanor grabbed the handle and shoved the door inward.
She took one step across the threshold—and froze.
Violet, following right on her heels, literally bumped into Eleanor’s back. "Mom, what are you—"
The words died in Violet’s throat.
The foyer was vast. It was cavernous. It was an echoing, hollow chamber of bare white pine floorboards stretching out beneath the dim light of a single builder’s bulb hanging from the high ceiling.
The Persian runner was gone.
The antique coat rack was gone.
The oil paintings were gone.
Standing in the absolute dead center of the empty, barren hallway, his hands clasped behind the back of his charcoal wool overcoat, was Julian Croft.
He looked like an inquisitor from an older, colder century. His gray hair was slicked back against his scalp, his posture rigid as a surveyor’s rod, and his steel-rimmed glasses caught the harsh overhead glare with a flat, predatory gleam.
Eleanor stared at him. The Le Petit bag slipped from her fingers, hitting the floorboards with a wet *splat* as a container of truffled risotto burst inside the paper.
"Julian?" Eleanor choked out. Her eyes darted from his face to the barren hallway behind him, then down the dark corridor toward the kitchen. "What... what is this? Where is my furniture? Where is Nora?"
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"Nora is currently in the custody of her legal counsel," Julian said. His voice was neither loud nor angry; it had the terrible, level weight of a judge reading a death warrant. "And you, Eleanor, are standing on private property without a valid license."
***
