Marcus Williams was already halfway across the street before he even had his shoes on. The scream had come from the house across from his one long ragged cry that cut through the midnight rain like a blade. He didn't think. He ran. And when the door flew open and a woman he barely knew collapsed straight into his arms, shaking soaked, whispering four words over and over, "He's coming back tonight." Marcus realized this wasn't a stranger in trouble.
This was the beginning of a secret that would tie their two broken lives together forever. The scream came at 11:47 p.m. Marcus Williams knew the time because he just looked at the clock on the stove. The way a tired man looks at a clock when he's promising himself he'll go to bed in 5 more minutes. He'd been sitting at the kitchen table for 2 hours, a stack of construction blueprints spread out in front of him, a cold cup of coffee at his elbow. His daughter Ava had been asleep since 9.
The house was quiet. The rain was steady. And then it wasn't quiet anymore. The sound tore through the walls. A woman's scream high and desperate coming from somewhere outside.
Marcus was on his feet before he understood he'd stood up. The chair scraped back and hit the floor behind him. "Ava," he said out loud, though she couldn't hear him. His first instinct was always her. He crossed the kitchen in three steps and looked down the hall toward her bedroom door.
"Closed. Quiet." She hadn't heard it. Good. The scream came again. Marcus didn't grab his shoes.
He didn't grab a jacket. He grabbed his keys off the counter out of habit, shoved his phone in his pocket, and went out the front door into the rain in his socks. The cold hit him immediately. October rain in Georgia was the kind that soaked you before you understood you were wet. He didn't care.
His eyes went straight across the street to the house he'd looked at a thousand times without ever really looking at it. Emily Carter's house. The porch light was off, but the front door was standing wide open and light was spilling out of it onto the wet grass. He ran. His feet slapped the pavement, then the sidewalk, then the grass.
He was up her porch steps in seconds. "Hello," he called out. "Emily, it's Marcus from across the street." He didn't hear her answer. He heard something worse. A sound like a person trying to breathe and failing.
He stepped inside. She was on the floor of the front hallway, her back against the wall, her knees pulled up to her chest. Emily Carter, the woman he'd seen a hundred times, pulling out of her driveway in a clean car with her hair perfect and her chin high, was on the floor of her own house, soaked, shaking her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her own body together. Emily. Marcus dropped to one knee in front of her.
Emily, it's me. It's Marcus. What happened? Are you hurt? She looked up at him.
Her face was stre with rain or tears. He couldn't tell which. Probably both. You came? She whispered.
Of course I came. I heard you scream. Are you hurt? Look at me. Are you bleeding anywhere?
No. She shook her head hard like a child. No, I'm not. I'm not hurt. Not like that.
Okay. Marcus let out a breath. Okay, good. That's good. He was here.
Her voice broke on the word. He was here, Marcus. He was standing right outside. I saw him through the window. He was just standing there watching.
Who was Ryan? The name meant nothing to Marcus, but the way she said it meant everything. Your husband? He asked carefully. "No." A short, terrible laugh escaped her.
"No, not my husband. He was going to be. We were supposed to get married." Her hands were shaking so badly, she pressed them flat against her own knees to stop them. "He's not supposed to be here. I told him not to come.
I told him. I told him if he came here, I'd call the police." And he just She looked up at the open door behind Marcus, her eyes going wide. Is he still out there? Did you see him? Is he still out there?
Marcus turned and looked. The street was empty. The rain was coming down through the street light in long silver lines. There was no one. There's nobody out there, he said.
Nobody. It's just me. He was there. I believe you. And he did.
But he's gone now. Whatever you saw, he's gone. Emily started to cry. Not the loud screaming kind she'd cried a minute ago. This was quieter and worse, the kind of crying that comes from a place a person has been holding shut for a long time.