Chapter 3 Chapter Three

Maren

The first thing I notice when Piper and I get home is the silver necklace lying in the exact center of my pillow. I stop in my bedroom doorway so fast Piper walks into my back and mutters something rude before looking over my shoulder. Then she stops too. Neither of us says anything for several seconds because I know exactly where that necklace should be. It has lived zipped inside a little jewelry case in the top drawer of my dresser for months, mostly because I never wear it anymore and partly because the cheap clasp catches my hair.

"Did you put that there?" Piper asks quietly.

I turn my head enough to look at her. "If I had, why would I be standing here looking terrified?"

Her eyes stay on the necklace. "I needed to hear you say no."

That answer lands badly enough that I step back into the hallway instead of going farther into the room. "No. I didn't put it there. It was in my dresser when we left."

Piper takes out her phone immediately. "Do not touch anything."

I stare at her. "You went from mysterious dream interrogator to crime-scene supervisor in under twelve hours. It's been a really weird day."

She doesn't smile. "Maren, somebody was in here." The obviousness of it makes my stomach turn harder than the necklace itself. There is nothing missing that I can see. My laptop is on the desk. The television is still there. My purse is with me. Whoever came inside did it to open a drawer, take out one personal thing, and put it somewhere I couldn't miss.

That realization is what makes me step fully back into the living room and call the police without arguing with Piper first.

Detective Rosa Delgado arrives with two officers and an evidence technician, and thankfully none of them talks to me in the careful voice adults used when I was a foster kid and they had already made a decision before asking what I wanted. Delgado is direct. She asks where the necklace belonged, who knows I keep it there, who has keys, whether I've been threatened, whether I've rejected anyone recently, whether an ex might have a reason to scare me, and whether anything else has happened that felt invasive. I tell her no to almost all of it, because "my roommate recognized the names of two men from a sex dream" doesn't seem useful to an Idaho stalking investigation.

"The necklace came from one of my foster homes," I explain when Delgado asks whether it matters to me. "Kathy McBride gave it to me. It's not expensive. I probably haven't worn it in a year."

Delgado writes that down and looks back toward the bedroom.

"That may be exactly why it matters. If someone wanted money, they ignored easier things to take. If they wanted you frightened, choosing something personal tells you they know more than where you live." The words make my skin go cold because until she says it, I have been concentrating so hard on how somebody got inside that I hadn't stopped to think about why they chose that necklace.

Lisa Nguyen, the property manager, arrives with the electronic access logs open on her tablet and looks personally offended by what she finds. "There was no maintenance entry, no management override, and no vendor access today," she tells Delgado, then turns the screen toward us. "Maren's code was used when you left this morning and again when you came back. That's it." I glance at Piper because her face has gone too still again, the same way it did when I said Alaric and Aldric's names. She catches me looking and immediately looks away.

"What?" I ask.

Piper shakes her head. "Nothing yet."

My patience, already running thin, disappears entirely at that comment. "No. We're not doing 'nothing yet' again while there are police standing in my apartment because somebody walked through a locked door. Whatever you think is happening, this is the part where you stop protecting me from information." Delgado's eyes move between us, and I can practically hear the detective part of her brain opening a new folder labeled Roommate Knows Something.

Before Piper can answer, Tori Benson from across the hall appears at our open front door in scrubs, looking exhausted and uncertain. "I don't know if this matters," she says, glancing at Delgado, "but I saw a guy out here earlier." Delgado moves toward her without crowding her and asks when, what he looked like, whether he touched the door. Tori thinks it was a little after two. She remembers a tall man in a dark coat with silver at his temples, pale gray eyes, a folder under one arm, and the kind of calm expression that made her assume he belonged in the building.

"He was standing near Maren's door," Tori says, twisting the strap of her bag around one hand. "I had groceries and asked if I needed to move around him. He smiled and told me I was fine. I figured he was management or an insurance guy or something."

Lisa immediately says nobody matching that description works for the property, and Piper makes a sound behind me so quiet nobody else would probably notice it. I do. I turn toward her. "You know him too?"

"No," she says quickly. Then, because she has apparently learned something from this morning, she corrects herself. "I do not know who Tori saw. I know what kind of thing could explain some of this, and I hate that possibility."

Delgado looks directly at her. "Then I need the part that could help identify who entered this apartment." Piper nods but doesn't get the chance to answer because the evidence technician calls us into the bedroom.

Beneath the window, cut faintly into the painted wood where the sill meets the wall, is a narrow circular symbol crossed by three angled lines. I have never seen it before but it's obvious that Piper has. She doesn't say anything, but all the color drains from her face, and suddenly the dream conversation from this morning isn't the strangest part of my day anymore.

"What is it?" I ask.

Piper's gaze stays fixed on the mark. "I have seen symbols like this before."

Delgado asks what kind of symbol, and Piper finally looks at me instead of the detective. The guilt on her face makes my stomach hurt. "I cannot give you a reliable meaning from the mark alone."

I wait, and when she doesn't keep going, I snap, "Piper, if the next words out of your mouth are 'give me until tonight,' I swear to God I'm going to lose my shit."

She looks around, glancing at Delgado and the rest of the people around us, clearly trying to decide the best course of action before stepping close enough to whisper into my ear, "There is another world."

For a second I genuinely think I heard her wrong. "What?" I whisper back.

Piper closes her eyes briefly, then opens them again, still close enough that her voice cannot carry beyond me. "I know how insane that sounds. I know, but I cannot explain anything more than that. Not here. Not now. Circumstances have clearly changed. I will tell you everything I can, Maren. I will tell you everything I know that concerns you, but I absolutely cannot do it here, in front of all of these people."

I stare at her because my brain has no idea what to do with a sentence like another world while a detective is standing three feet away. "You're serious," I whisper. Piper nods once.

"Completely."

"And this has something to do with the men from the dream?" I whisper. Her face tightens.

"Yes. That is all I can say here." I point toward my bedroom.

"Somebody broke into my apartment. That is real. There is an actual man Tori saw standing outside my door. I'm not letting a secret become an excuse to ignore the real guy."

"Nor should you," Piper says. "The man is real. The break-in is real. The police need every ordinary fact that can help them find him. I will not interfere with that investigation. I am asking you to let me keep one thing protected until we are alone." Her voice is shaking by the end, and I realize with a jolt that Piper is not excited to reveal some secret part of her life. She is terrified of saying too much in front of the wrong people.

Delgado clears her throat, bringing the room back to the fact that there are law-enforcement officers in it. "I am going to assume that was private and stay with the part I can investigate. Piper, do you recognize the symbol well enough to tell me whether it points to a person, organization, location, or threat?"

Piper studies the mark without touching it. "It resembles a private notation system I have seen before. I do not know enough from one mark to identify a person or group, but whoever left it likely expected somebody in this apartment to recognize it."

Delgado asks, "You?" Piper swallows.

"Possibly." That scares me enough without anybody else in the room knowing why.

The next hour is painfully ordinary in the way emergencies usually are. Lisa changes the lock even though there is no damage. Delgado photographs everything. The evidence tech finds a deep heel impression in the carpet near my bedroom and a black wool fiber caught against the baseboard. Tori gives a full statement. I call Kathy McBride and ask, without telling her why yet, whether she remembers the necklace. She does. She also remembers that it went missing briefly when I was thirteen and then turned up again in my room, something I had completely forgotten. Delgado makes Piper promise to send any non-speculative information she can legally describe about the symbol. Then the police, Lisa, Tori, and the evidence technician finally leave us alone.

The second the door closes, I turn the deadbolt and face Piper. "How long have you known there was something weird about me?" Her face crumples just enough that I already hate the answer.

"A long time." The old foster-kid anger hits immediately, hot and familiar. Another adult. Another person who knew something about my life and decided I could wait.

"Then tonight starts now," I tell her.

"You wanted time to confirm things. Somebody just broke into my apartment and left you a symbol. You don't get more time." Piper nods without arguing.

"You are right." She takes out her phone, opens a screen I have never seen before, and presses her thumb against a blank black square. When she murmurs a string of unfamiliar words under her breath, the screen flashes once and goes completely dark.

I stare at it. "What the hell was that?"

"An emergency contact," she answers, already standing.

"To who?" I ask, even though I have a feeling I know before she says it.

Piper looks at me. "Alaric and Aldric."

And just like that, the dream stops feeling harmless.