She found the right key. There was a faint click as the lock disengaged. She opened the door, hearing the beep-beep-beep of the alarm. All went silent when she entered the code, and Nina breathed a sigh of relief.
She had watched Simon turn the alarm on and off many times and automatically committed the sequence to memory. Nina thanked her social work training for sharpening her observation skills, as well as Simon’s complacence with keeping the same alarm code.
If she had second thoughts, Nina couldn’t act on them now. She was here. She had no choice but to push forward. A split second after setting foot inside, however, she knew something was wrong—terribly wrong.
As a childless bachelor, Simon didn’t own much furniture. What he had acquired, he had moved into the new home. He had told her he bought new furniture for the renters, so she expected to see couches, chairs, tables. But the home was stripped bare of everything—there were no rugs, no plants, no nothing. Even the walls were smooth, no markings where pictures might have hung.
It looked to her like nobody lived here, but when she checked the floor with her fingers, not a speck of dust collected on the tips. Someone was keeping the home spic and span, just the way Simon liked it.
Nina peered down the front hallway before taking one tentative step followed by another. With nothing to absorb the sound, her footsteps echoed loudly, and her heart stayed lodged firmly in her throat. She listened. Did she hear something? A scratch? A bark? No, the home was as still as a morgue.
“Daisy? Are you here?” Nina’s voice bounced off the walls as she ventured farther into the quiet, empty house.
Emboldened, she wandered about, noting the lack of furnishings in each room, the dearth of comforts of any kind. She passed through a spotless kitchen, where there were some signs of actual life—dishes drying on a wooden drying rack, pots on the stove. She checked inside the refrigerator. There was milk, along with cheese, eggs, and vegetables for a salad. Someone was eating, but she didn’t see any dog food, and that was upsetting. Maybe Simon was telling the truth. But every fiber in her body told her Daisy was here, somewhere, so she kept searching.
Eventually, Nina made her way to the master bedroom, which was at the end of a short hallway. It was the room where she and Simon had first made love, but what had once been a cozy space was now nearly barren. There was a mattress on the floor and bedside it a lamp, no end table. The bed was made, neat and tight like a soldier’s bunk.
Nina’s gaze went to three framed photographs hanging on the walls, the only pictures she’d seen in the entire house. Her blood froze. She approached and studied the images carefully. One picture was clearly of Emma Dolan, but lacking the genial smile she’d worn in the image Hugh had shown her. This portrait was far more subdued, taken in black-and-white at what looked like a photography studio, with her hair styled as Nina’s was now. The second picture was of Nina, a photograph of her that she remembered Simon taking in a park after she’d gotten her new hairdo. It, too, was printed in black-and-white, mounted in a simple black frame with a white mat.
It was the third photograph that left Nina shaking.
This was another picture of her, only it wasn’t her. The woman in the photograph was leaning up against a tree in a verdant park, and unquestionably in her twenties. And strangely enough, she looked just as Nina had at that age. Judging by the woman’s outfit—plaid, pleated miniskirt, a high-neck sweater, platform shoes—it was a style Nina might have worn in the ’90s. The haircut, however, was the same as Emma’s, the same as Nina’s—a bob with straight bangs and angled sides. While Nina and the person in the third photograph shared uncannily similar facial features, the younger woman had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen.
“Who are you?” Nina whispered, touching the glass as she traced her fingertips along the contours of the young woman’s face, so similar to her own.
She surveyed the rest of the room, not that there was much to see. She noticed now what she hadn’t before: a small book on the bed. It was the only book in the room and possibly in the entire house, which was odd for someone who studied history