My voice sounded thin and unlike me when I called up the stairwell.
“Hello? I know someone’s here. This is private property.”
Silence.
Then a soft whisper. Another one. Fear moving from person to person overhead like current.
I climbed the first three steps with my phone in my hand, thumb poised over 911.
“I’m calling the police,” I said louder. “You need to come out now.”
The answer that came floated down in a voice so young and frightened it made me stop where I was.
“Please don’t.”
A girl stepped into view at the top of the stairs.
She looked about sixteen. Maybe younger if fear had not hollowed her face the way it had. Her hair was tangled and pale, her eyes red-rimmed, her sweatshirt several sizes too big. She was shaking hard enough that I thought for one terrible second she might actually collapse.
“Please,” she said again. “Please don’t call the police. He promised we were safe here.”
He.
I stared at her.
“Who promised?” I asked. “Who are you?”
Before she could answer, another woman appeared behind her and placed one hand lightly but firmly on the girl’s shoulder.
The second woman was in her thirties, maybe, with dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck and the wary, sharpened face of somebody who had learned that the first question in any encounter is not what you want, but whether you are safe enough to answer. Her eyes moved over me in one quick assessing sweep—coat, purse, phone, posture, shoes—and I could almost see her deciding how dangerous I was.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“My name is Amanda Pierce,” I said, and hearing my own name anchored me just enough to keep my voice steady. “This farm belonged to my husband, George Pierce. He died three weeks ago. I inherited the property. Now I’d like to know who you are and why there are people living in my house.”
The younger girl made a strangled sound.
The older woman’s face lost all color.
“Your husband,” she said slowly. “Mr. George was married?”
That was the first moment the true shape of the shock began to unfold. Because the disbelief in her voice was as real as mine.
I climbed the rest of the stairs slowly, keeping my phone visible. At the top of the landing I could see they were standing in front of a closed bedroom door, almost as if guarding it.