Page 39

One.
Just one.
Unknown number.
My stomach dropped.
For a second, I told myself it could still be Noah.Maybe he was calling from a different line—work phone, maybe, or something encrypted, military-style. He didn’t exactly seem like the type to stick with one phone plan for too long.
But deep down, I knew something was wrong.
It wasn’t logic. It wasn’t evidence. It was that hollow kind of knowing that lives somewhere beneath your ribs, a quiet ache that flares when the world tilts sideways. The kind of knowing Mama always called “the Spirit whispering.”
I’d felt it the moment I opened my eyes that morning. That strange stillness. That waiting in the air. Like the sky knew something I didn’t yet. Like the birds hadn’t sung as loud, the breeze hadn’t stirred the trees the way it should’ve.
I told myself it was nothing. That I was just shaken up from everything at Grace House. The break-in, the blood, the noise of it all. I’d never been through something like that before. Never had to give a statement to a detective with shaking hands or watch someone be handcuffed just feet from where kids played with chalk the day before. I’d never even been inside a police station before. The fluorescent lights, the quiet hum of printers and whispered conversations—it had all felt surreal, like I was acting in a movie I hadn’t auditioned for.
Of course, I felt off. Of course, the world felt strange. It didn’t mean anything was actually wrong.
There was no good reason to think anything had happened. Daddy had been fine when I hugged him goodbye at the station. Tired, yes. Stretched thin like always. But solid. Steady. Still holding my shoulder like he could absorb my worry if he just squeezed hard enough.
But I’d had this heaviness in my chest ever since. Andnow the phone, the number I didn’t recognize, the timing?—
It wasn’t coincidence.
It was confirmation.
Some part of me already knew.
Before I hit play.
Before I heard the words.
Before my knees gave out.
Because the body always knows before the mind does.
And my body had been grieving before I ever pressed listen.
Before I could stop myself, I tapped the voicemail icon, thumb trembling.
“Miss Calhoun? This is Officer Sandlin with the Estill Police Department. I’m sorry to call so early, but?—”
My heart stopped. Cold rushed in.
“—I’m afraid there’s been an incident involving your father.”
I couldn’t hear the rest.
The phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a sickening little clatter, the voicemail still playing in a voice that felt too calm, too practiced, too detached.
My knees buckled. I sank to the floor in the middle of my kitchen, the hem of my cotton dress curling around me like a forgotten napkin.
No.
No, no, no.
This wasn’t happening.