“Clara,” his voice came through the TV speaker, dry and quiet.

“If you’re watching this, then something has happened to me.”

Sophie’s foot stopped moving against the rug.

Daniel stepped in until his face took up half the frame.

His gray eyes were wide, the way they got when our furnace quit in the middle of winter.

“I’m in the lake shed,” Daniel said on the recording.

“It’s four in the afternoon.

Dean thinks I’m at the hardware store in town.”