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She shot one back, just one, all she had.

Billy sidled over to the corner, peered around, his hand following his eyes, reaching. Reaching harder.

‘Two inches up,’ Jet said.

He found it, pressing the tape over the lens, winding the spare around the back of the camera.

‘Nailed it,’ Jet said, patting him on the back.

‘They don’t record sound, right?’

‘Just picture.’

‘They’re gonna know someone was here, though.’ Billy glanced over his shoulder, wincing as the wind rattled the trees, throwing whispers at them. ‘That the cameras were tampered with.’

‘Nah, I doubt Dad even checks them,’ Jet said. ‘Unless he has reason to.’

Billy nodded. ‘Let’s not give him a reason to, then.’

‘Yep,’ Jet agreed. ‘We’ll leave everything as we find it. Don’t worry, they’ll never know.’

Billy pointed to the lock on the front door, the building pitch black behind the glass.

‘Got the key?’ he asked.

Jet pressed her lips together. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Did TV teach you how to pick a lock, Jet?’ Billy shot her a look.

‘Don’t need to. There’s a lockbox.’ She pointed to the little black box mounted against the wall, behind a plant pot, a combination lock across its face. ‘But I love your faith in me as a master criminal. Let’s keep that energy going.’

She shuffled the pot out a few inches, bent down, started sliding the numbers of the lock.

‘Emily’s birthday again?’ Billy asked.

‘No.’ Jet strained, the plant tickling her face. ‘It’s actually just zero – zero – zero – zero. Kept telling Dad that wasn’t very secure. Got it.’

She pulled the front of the lockbox open, scrabbled inside for the key. Passed it to Billy, who slid it into the lock.

‘OK, don’t freak out,’ Jet warned him. ‘The alarm will start to beep. But it’s fine, I know the code to disable it before it goes off. And that is Emily’s birthday again.’

‘Won’t freak out.’ Billy twisted the key and pushed open the heavy door.

The alarm woke up, started to chirp, ushering them through into the darkness inside.

Billy held the door for Jet, his hand on her back, closed it behind her.

‘OK.’ She approached the alarm, eye height on the inside wall, its screen illuminated, counting down. 57 seconds, 56. System armed, it said. Enter code?

Yes, she was going to. Pressed the rubber buttons: 022492 enter.

The alarm beeped at her, in between the chirps.

Code attempt 1 of 3, it said.

Jet’s heart made a break for it, thrumming in the base of her throat.

‘Fuck.’ She smacked her fist against the wall. ‘They’ve changed the code.’

‘OK.’ Billy’s voice behind her, breathy and panicked. ‘Now I’m freaking out. Try something else? Another birthday?’

40 seconds. 39.

Jet tried Luke’s next: 051695 enter.

The keypad beeped again, angrier now.

Code attempt 2 of 3.

‘Fuck,’ Jet hissed. ‘Not Luke’s.’

‘Jet.’

22 seconds. 21. 20.

One last attempt, one final chance.

Jet pressed the buttons: 120597. Her birthday, exactly one month away. She hadn’t noticed that, hadn’t registered the date. Would never make it to twenty-eight.

11 seconds.

10.

9.

‘Jet.’

She pressed enter.

A high-pitched tone erupted, clashing with the chirps, and then …

Silence.

Just the ringing in Jet’s ears, a ghostly echo trapped inside her skull.

Code entered. System disarmed.

‘Oh thank god,’ Billy said, dropping his head, chin to his chest.

‘Well, would you look at that.’ She turned to him. ‘ My birthday. Guess Dad really is all about being fair. One dead daughter for the gate, another dead daughter for the alarm.’

Billy bent forward, blew out two chipmunk cheeks of air.

‘You’ll live, Billy,’ Jet said, giving his shoulder a squeeze. ‘Come on, the office part is upstairs.’

‘Lights?’ Billy asked, pointing to the switch.

Jet steadied her flashlight instead. ‘Let’s keep them off – someone might spot them from the road.’

‘Right.’ Billy pulled out his phone, swiped the screen to bring up the flashlight.

They walked through the warehouse, several towers of pallets wrapped in clear plastic, piles of shimmering blue bathroom tiles stacked inside.

Beyond them, rows of huge wooden timber beams, long enough to mock the trees they came from.

Twenty years ago, Jet would have tried to balance-beam on those, but Luke and Emily could always stay on longer.

Not the kind of siblings who ever let her win.

‘This way.’

Through the show kitchen at the back of the warehouse that Jet always found creepy: a kitchen where no kitchen should be, stools at the breakfast bar where only ghosts ever sat.

Through the door, down the corridor to the base of the metal stairs.

Their steps hollow and too loud as they walked up, two beams carving through the darkness. Well, actually, four beams and double darkness, but don’t tell Billy that.

Jet shouldered the door at the top, metal becoming carpet underfoot.

She swung the flashlight across the open-plan office space, the beam reflecting off the windows and sleeping computer screens, winking back at them.

‘How many people work up here?’ Billy asked, trying to count the desks.

‘Think there’s about fifteen full-time in this office.’ Jet ventured forward, checking her path with the light. ‘Dad has his own separate office down the hall, next to the kitchen.’ She showed Billy with the beam. ‘Luke doesn’t have his own office, but Dad let him have a partition. This way.’

She led Billy through the office to the back right corner. Luke’s corner. A folded screen made of white-painted wood and thin glass, to separate his desk from the others. Not quite his own office, but all he was going to get.

Jet dropped into Luke’s chair, way too high, her feet dangling above the ground. It squeaked as she took it for a spin, hand on the desk to catch herself.

Luke’s MacBook screen caught the flashlight, held it there, open on the desk, connected by HDMI to a larger external monitor.

‘OK,’ Jet said, wiggling the mouse, clicking to wake the computer up.

It blinked into life. The lock screen was a family photo of Luke, Sophia, and Cameron taken on the Fourth of July, sprinkles of fireworks dripping onto their shoulders from the background. A gray box blocking out the baby’s eyes, asking Jet for the password.

‘I’m guessing this can’t be Emily’s birthday too?’ Billy said, deflating, kneeling beside Jet, head almost as high as hers.

‘No.’ Jet stretched the fingers of her left hand. ‘But there’s a high chance it’s the same password he uses on his iPhone.’

‘And you know that?’

‘You know it too.’ Jet sniffed. ‘He told us this morning, about thirteen hours ago, when I unlocked his phone to check his messages with Sophia.’

Billy’s mouth dropped open, a twinkle in his eyes. Impressed. ‘You remember that?’

‘I’m good at remembering numbers and all other kinds of useless shit, Billy,’ Jet said, pressing 213024 on the keyboard. ‘That’s how I passed all my exams. Must have had a good math teacher.’

She regretted it almost instantly, wincing, the guilt reacting to the sudden change in heat, simmering away.

Billy blinked. ‘Better math teacher than she was a mom.’

Jet hesitated. Should she say something; did Billy want her to? ‘That’s not true, Billy.’

‘Shitty math teacher too?’

‘No, she was a good mom. You used to talk about her all the time. I actually used to get a little jealous.’

‘Yeah,’ he sniffed, voice hollow. ‘She was. Probably my best friend after you found Sophia instead. Until she decided to leave me and Dad with no explanation.’

Jet didn’t know how to respond, so she didn’t. She pressed enter and crossed her fingers … not literally, had no fingers to spare.

The home screen jumped out at them, icons and files covering every inch of the desktop.

‘It worked,’ Jet hissed, catching Billy’s eyes across the darkness.

She picked up the mouse and guided the on-screen arrow, double-clicking on Finder to bring up Luke’s files.

‘Doesn’t take two of us to go through one computer.’ Billy straightened up. ‘I should keep looking. Does he have files in his desk or …?’ He opened a couple of drawers; just pens, a calculator, a tangled yarn ball of cords with different-shaped heads and metal teeth.

‘There’s a whole room of filing cabinets.’ Jet turned to him. ‘I think Dad’s old-school, likes to keep hard copies of invoices and whatever. It’s the little room, beyond the kitchen. That way.’ She pointed with her flashlight.

‘OK, I’ll go look in there.’

Billy walked away, then came right back, the flashlight on his phone pointed up at his face, distorting it with strange upward shadows.

‘Um,’ he said. ‘What am I looking for?’

‘Anything,’ Jet replied, unhelpfully.

‘Anything. Yeah, cool. Got it,’ Billy muttered to himself, walking away and out of sight, the darkness claiming him.

‘Yell if you find anything,’ Jet called to him.

‘Yeah, you too,’ his voice floated back, Jet smiling as she caught it.

She turned back to the screen. Where first? She clicked on Documents and about fifty blue file icons filled the page. Hmm, this could take a while.

Instead, Jet clicked on the little magnifying glass to bring up the search bar.

Coleby hammer, she typed into it, frustrated at how slow it was, typing with one hand, and her weaker hand at that.

Pressed enter.

No results.

Just Coleby , deleting hammer.

No results.

Fuck it, fine, wasn’t going to be that easy. Not a document that said, Oh hey, Jet, I see you’re looking for your murder weapon. Here’s a handy little order form with the exact employee who owns that tool kit.

The hard way, then.

She clicked on a folder named Important Work Files , then Finances , then 2025 , then kept going, clicking through an entire Russian doll of folders, each one eaten by the last.

Eventually she found an Excel spreadsheet called October 2025 Payroll, last edited a few days ago. Double-clicked to open it up, dragged it over to the larger monitor.

She rubbed one eye and then the other with her left hand, tried to read the screen, even though every letter and number had more edges than they should.