Chapter 6 - The House Within the HouseThe police treated our home like a crime scene.
“No.”
Her voice barely existed.
“That isn’t me.”
I replayed the clip.
The woman’s voice came again.
“We can’t keep doing this.”
It sounded exactly like Rachel.
I looked at her.
“You said you’ve never been to the facility.”
“I haven’t.”
“Your voice is on the recording.”
“I don’t know why.”
Marcus leaned toward the speaker.
“Play it again.”
I did.
He listened carefully.
Then again.
Rachel started crying.
“I swear to you, Daniel.”
I wanted to believe her.
That was the problem.
Despite everything, my instincts still reached toward the woman I had loved for eleven years.
But instincts could be manipulated.
Memory could be manipulated.
Apparently my entire mind could be manipulated.
I searched the flash drive.
A photograph appeared.
The timestamp was the same night.
A woman in a dark coat stood near the facility entrance.
Her face was turned partly away.
Her height.
Her hair.
Her posture.
Rachel.
She covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
I stared at her.
“You were there.”
“No.”
“Rachel.”
“I would remember!”
The cruelty of that sentence hit all three of us at once.
Memory was no longer proof of anything.
Marcus looked at the photo.
“This could be from years ago.”
“The timestamp says May.”
“Metadata can be changed.”
“So can notebooks.”
“So can videos.”
I stood.
“Then we verify everything.”
“How?”
“I want your blood tested.”
Rachel stared at me.
“My blood?”
“If I was exposed, maybe you were too.”
Marcus nodded.
“That’s reasonable.”
Rachel’s eyes widened.
“You think they erased my memory?”
“I think I don’t know anything anymore.”
Marcus arranged private testing through a colleague.
We drove separately.
I kept Lily with my sister, Anne, telling her Rachel and I had an emergency.
Anne asked too many questions.
I answered none.
At the clinic, blood was drawn from all three of us.
My results were already known.
Rachel’s would take hours.
Marcus volunteered his too.
That surprised me.
While we waited, I called my former employer.
My old supervisor, Greg Dalton, answered.
“Daniel?”
“Yes.”
Long silence.
“Are you okay?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“Do you remember calling me yesterday?”
“No.”
He sighed.
“Then I guess not.”
I gripped the phone.
“Greg, why was I fired?”
“You weren’t fired.”
I looked at Rachel.
“What?”
“You resigned.”
“When?”
“June ninth.”
“Why?”
“You said you needed to protect the firm.”
“From what?”
“You wouldn’t tell me.”
“Did I mention North Harbor?”
Silence.
“Greg.”
“You told me never to say that name over the phone.”
My heart sped up.
“Did I leave anything at the office?”
“Your desk was cleaned out.”
“By me?”
“No.”
I went cold.
“Who?”
“Your wife.”
I looked at Rachel.
Her eyes widened.
“What?”
Greg continued.
“She came with authorization signed by you.”
“When?”
“June tenth.”
I hung up.
Rachel shook her head.
“I did not go to your office.”
“Greg says you did.”
“I didn’t.”
I pulled up our calendar.
June 10.
Rachel’s work schedule showed a full day at the pediatric clinic where she worked as an administrator.
“Can your employer verify you were there?”
“Yes.”
She called immediately.
Her supervisor confirmed Rachel had worked from 8:00 to 5:30.
Security footage existed.
Marcus sat very still.
“Someone is constructing evidence.”
I looked at him.
“Or she has an accomplice.”
Rachel glared.
“Enough.”
“Can you blame me?”
“Yes!”
For the first time, she screamed.
“I have spent weeks watching my husband disappear one day at a time! Every morning I wonder which version of you is going to wake up. Every morning I tell you pieces of your own life while pretending I’m not terrified that one day you won’t remember me at all!”
Her voice shattered.
“And now you’re looking at me like I’m the enemy.”
I said nothing.
She wiped her face.
“I don’t know what happened in Michigan.”
I believed her.
Or wanted to.
The distinction frightened me.
Two hours later, the lab called Marcus.
His blood was clean.
Rachel’s wasn’t.
The same compound found in me appeared in her bloodstream.
At a lower level.
But it was there.
Rachel sat down.
“No.”
Marcus looked stunned.
“How?”
She whispered, “I haven’t had injections.”
I thought of the tea.
The wine.
The dinners.
Shared food.
“Maybe it wasn’t injected.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
“Chronic microdosing.”
My heart sank.
“In our house.”
“Potentially.”
Rachel looked at me.
“Somebody has been drugging both of us.”
I immediately thought of Lily.
“Test my daughter.”
Marcus didn’t argue.
By evening, Lily’s preliminary screen showed no sign of exposure.
Relief nearly dropped me to my knees.
Whoever was doing this was targeting adults.
Us.
Specifically.
We returned home just after dark.
Something felt wrong before I opened the door.
The alarm was still armed.
No broken windows.
No obvious damage.
But inside, every notebook was gone.
The locked desk drawer stood open.
The burner phone was missing from my pocket.
I checked.
Nothing.
Rachel whispered, “Daniel?”
I had definitely brought it home.
Hadn’t I?
I searched the kitchen.
Bedroom.
Car.
Nothing.
Then Lily’s hallway camera sent an alert.
Motion detected upstairs.
But we were all downstairs.
I opened the live feed.
A man stood inside our bedroom.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
Same build as the figure from June 2.
Warren Pike.
He looked directly into the hidden camera.
Then he smiled.
Raised one finger to his lips.
And disappeared into the closet.
I grabbed a fireplace poker.
Rachel whispered, “Call the police.”
“Do it.”
I moved toward the stairs.
Marcus grabbed my arm.
“Don’t.”
“He’s in my house.”
“He wants you to go up there.”
“What?”
“If he came here to kill you, he wouldn’t announce himself to the camera.”
I stared at the screen.
The closet door remained closed.
Police sirens approached.
Then the bedroom closet exploded outward.
Not with fire.
With smoke.
Thick white smoke flooded the room.
The camera blurred.
The fire alarm screamed.
We rushed outside.
Firefighters and police arrived within minutes.
No one was found inside.
But behind the closet wall, investigators discovered a narrow opening leading into the attic crawlspace.
An opening I never knew existed.
Inside it were food wrappers.
Water bottles.
Medical gloves.
A sleeping bag.
And photographs.
Hundreds of photographs.
Rachel sleeping.
Me showering.
Lily doing homework.
Our family eating dinner.
Someone had been living inside our house.
For weeks.
One photograph was pinned separately to the wooden beam.
It showed Rachel and me sleeping.
May you like
Across our faces, written in black marker, were the words:
SUBJECTS 7 AND 8.
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