“No. And you need to listen.” The words came quickly, edged with urgency. “I made a mistake. The living room camera—I didn’t turn it off.”

A slow unease settled in my stomach.

When I bought the house, the old security system was still mounted in the corners—small, barely noticeable cameras Warren had installed after a rash of porch thefts in the neighborhood. He offered to leave them. I said yes, mostly because I didn’t have the energy to argue. Not about cameras. Not about anything. What I really needed was a place where the past wouldn’t follow me down every hallway.

We’d talked about transferring the system. He said it would be simple.

It wasn’t.

“You still have access?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to. I forgot to disconnect the cloud account from my tablet.” He swallowed. “I wasn’t watching. I swear. I was fixing the settings and it just came up. And I saw something.”

Something in my chest tightened.

“What did you see?”

There was a pause, then a shaky breath.

“It’s about your sister-in-law,” Warren said.

My grip on the phone tightened.

Olivia Morrison—Patricia’s younger sister. Not blood, but after twenty-seven years, that distinction didn’t matter. She was family in the way that counts: the kind who knows where you keep the good plates and doesn’t hesitate to rearrange your pantry.

After Patricia’s funeral, Olivia was the one who showed up without being asked—casseroles in hand, coffee brewing, her smile a little too bright but enough to keep my quiet, childless house from going completely still. She brought Emma with her—five years old now, all freckles and questions. One spring afternoon, Emma sat on my porch swing and declared with absolute certainty, “Grandpa Vin, when I grow up, I’m building a house with a slide.”

I wasn’t her grandfather. Not officially. But she called me that, and I didn’t correct her. Some titles come from what you survive together.

So when Warren said Olivia’s name like it carried danger, my first instinct was to reject it. To push back. To make him take it back.

“You’re sure?” I heard myself ask, as if certainty could soften what came next.

“I’m sure enough to call you,” he said quietly. “And I can’t explain it over the phone. You need to come here. Alone.”

My heart shifted into a rhythm I hadn’t felt since Patricia’s diagnosis—fast, uneven, like something inside me understood before I did that everything was about to change.

“Warren, if this is—”