The storm hit Bittersweet Court with the subtlety of a freight train.
It wasn’t just rain; it was a deluge that turned the atmosphere into a solid wall of water. The wind howled off the wetlands, bending the ancient oaks until they groaned in protest. Inside Number 4, the lights flickered—once, twice—and then died, plunging the house into a heavy, suffocating darkness.
Maya stood in the center of the kitchen, a glass of wine in her hand. The silence that followed the power cut was instant and absolute, broken only by the drumming of the rain against the roof.
“Perfect,” she muttered.
She set the glass down on the counter by feel. The house felt different in the dark. Without the hum of the refrigerator, the whir of the HVAC, or the glow of the digital clocks, it felt like a dead thing. Or worse—a waiting thing.
She reached into the drawer next to the sink and pulled out the heavy-duty Maglite she had started keeping within arm’s reach since the nursery incident. The beam cut a solid white cone through the gloom, illuminating the familiar shapes of her domestic life—the toaster, the fruit bowl, the knife block—and making them look alien.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Chloe: Power out at my place. Rick is cursing at the generator. Is yours out?
Maya: Yes. Whole street looks dark.
Chloe: Stay upstairs. Don’t go down there.
Maya looked at the basement door. It was a slab of white wood at the end of the hallway, innocent in the daylight, ominous in the dark. The breaker panel was down there. If it was just a tripped main, she could flip it. If it was the grid, she was stuck.
But the basement was also where she had found the stain. It was the foundation of the house, and the foundation of the murder.
“It’s just a breaker,” she whispered to herself, the sound of her own voice startling her. “You’re a journalist, not a child.”
She gripped the flashlight like a baton and walked to the door. She unlocked it. The air that drifted up from the stairwell was cool and smelled of damp earth—the scent of the Sinks seeping through the concrete.
She descended. One step. Two. The wooden stairs creaked under her weight, announcing her arrival to whatever might be waiting in the shadows.
The beam of the flashlight swept the room. The finished side of the basement—the playroom, the guest suite—looked normal, if eerie. The shadows of the furniture stretched long and distorted across the carpet.
She moved toward the unfinished utility room in the back. This was the heart of the house. The furnace. The water heater. The electrical panel.
And the stain.
She forced herself not to look at the floor where the dark bloom still marked the concrete. She kept the light trained on the grey metal box of the breaker panel mounted on the far wall.
The utility room was cold. The storm outside was loud here, the thunder vibrating through the foundation walls. It felt like being inside a submarine under attack.
Maya reached the panel. She opened the metal door with a squeak of hinges that set her teeth on edge.
She shined the light on the switches. The main breaker was tripped to the “OFF” position.
“Okay,” she breathed. “Just a surge.”
She reached out to flip it.
CRACK-BOOM.
A massive peal of thunder shook the house. The floor jumped beneath her feet. Dust rained down from the ceiling joists, swirling in the flashlight beam like snow.
Maya stumbled, grabbing the shelving unit next to the panel to steady herself. The metal shelves rattled violently against the concrete wall.
Then, she heard it.
It wasn’t the thunder. It was a smaller, distinct sound. A grinding noise. Scrape. Thud.
It came from the wall behind the shelves.
Maya froze. She swung the flashlight beam away from the panel, aiming it through the gaps in the metal shelving.
The foundation wall of Number 4 was made of cinder blocks, painted a thick, glossy white to seal out the moisture. But right behind the shelf—about waist height—one of the blocks looked wrong.
The paint along the mortar line was cracked.
Maya leaned in. The vibration from the thunder had dislodged something. The block wasn’t sitting flush. It had shifted outward by a fraction of an inch.
She shouldn’t touch it. She should flip the breaker, run upstairs, and lock herself in the bedroom until the sun came up.
But Maya Lin-Baker hadn’t joined the Cold Case Club to be safe. She had joined to know.
She set the flashlight on the shelf, aiming it at the wall. She grabbed the metal shelving unit—heavy with paint cans and old tools—and heaved. It groaned, scraping across the concrete floor. She moved it just enough to create a gap.
She faced the wall. She reached out and touched the loose block.
It wiggled.
It wasn’t mortared in. It was a plug. A false brick.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic rhythm that drowned out the rain. Who put a loose brick in a foundation wall?
The Blue Suits, Arthur Henderson’s voice whispered in her memory. They checked the pipes. They checked the wiring.
Maya gripped the edges of the rough concrete block. It was heavy. She pulled. It slid forward with a dry, grinding sound, dust puffing out from the gaps.
She wrestled it free, lowering it to the floor.
She picked up the flashlight and shined it into the hole.
It was a hollow space, maybe six inches deep, carved out of the earth behind the foundation. A hiding spot. A dead drop.
The beam caught something inside.
It wasn’t money. It wasn’t a weapon.
It was a small, rectangular plastic case. Dust coated the top, thick and grey, undisturbed for decades. A spider had spun a web across the corner.
Maya reached in. Her hand trembled as her fingers brushed the cold plastic. She grabbed it and pulled it out into the light.
It was a cassette tape.
A TDK D90. The kind you bought in a three-pack at RadioShack in 1994. The clear plastic case was scratched, but the tape inside looked intact.
Maya wiped the dust from the spine with her thumb.
There was writing on the insert card. Blue ballpoint pen. The handwriting was looped, feminine, and hurried. The pressure of the pen had indented the paper.
JUNIPER’S INSURANCE.
Maya stared at the words. The air in the basement seemed to drop ten degrees.
Insurance.
You don’t buy insurance unless you expect a crash.
“Juniper,” Maya whispered.
This wasn’t a diary. This wasn’t a mixtape. This was evidence. Juniper Black had known she was in danger. She had known the Blue Suits were watching. She had known the neighbor in the gazebo was planning something.
And she had left a message.
Maya looked at the hole in the wall. It was ingenious. Behind the shelving unit, next to the electrical panel—a place no one would look unless they were working on the house.
Or unless a thunderstorm shook the secrets loose.
A noise from upstairs made Maya jump. A door closing.
She spun around, shining the light toward the stairs.
“Hello?” she called out.
Silence. Just the rain.
“Dan?” she tried, though Dan was miles away at the hotel.
No answer. Just the house settling.
But the feeling of being watched—the sensation that had plagued her for weeks—was suddenly acute. The darkness at the top of the stairs felt heavy, solid.
She shoved the cassette tape into her bra, keeping it close to her skin. She shoved the cinder block back into the hole, not bothering to align it perfectly. She dragged the shelf back.
She didn’t flip the breaker. She didn’t want the lights to come on. If someone was upstairs, she wanted the darkness. The darkness was her cover now.
She gripped the Maglite like a club.
She moved toward the stairs, stepping softly. She needed to get out. She needed to get to her car. She needed to find a tape player.
As she climbed, the wood creaked. She reached the hallway. The front door was still locked. The windows were dark.
She was alone.
But as she stood in the foyer, clutching the cold plastic of the tape against her chest, she realized she wasn’t alone. She had Juniper.
For thirty years, the neighborhood had told Juniper’s story. They had called her a slut. A victim. A problem.
Now, Juniper was going to speak for herself.
Maya unlocked the front door and stepped out onto the porch. The wind whipped her hair across her face, the rain soaking her instantly. She didn’t care. She ran to her car, unlocked it, and threw herself inside.
She locked the doors. She looked down at the tape in her hand.
The Volvo was a 2022 model. It didn’t have a tape deck. It had Bluetooth and Apple CarPlay and a touchscreen, but it couldn’t play the most important piece of audio in the history of Bittersweet Court.
Maya rested her forehead against the steering wheel and let out a short, hysterical laugh.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay. Innovation problem.”
She put the car in gear. She knew who had a tape deck. She knew who had a house full of obsolete technology and a grudge against the Blue Suits.
She backed out of the driveway, her headlights cutting through the storm. She wasn’t going to Sarah’s. She wasn’t going to Chloe’s.
She was going to the Gardener’s shed.
Arthur Henderson had loved Juniper. He had kept a shrine. If anyone still had a way to listen to the dead, it was him.
As she drove past the empty Thorne house, she glanced at the dark windows. Lightning flashed, illuminating the facade for a split second.
The “For Sale” sign had fallen over in the wind. Face down in the mud.
And in the second-floor window—the one that looked into Maya’s sunroom—the blinds were open.
Just a crack.
Maya hit the gas. She had the insurance policy in her shirt. Now she just had to survive long enough to cash it in.