picked up the cough medicine thinking maybe one of my nieces had left it there months ago and I’d forgotten. But the bottle was still half full and the pharmacy label looked brand new.
Same address as mine.
Different last name.
The child’s name was Olivia.
I just stood there holding it while my stomach slowly started turning over. Because suddenly all the weird little things from the past few months started lining up in my head. Random noises upstairs late at night. The trash bins filling up too fast. My electric bill creeping higher even though I live alone and barely use anything except the television and my bedroom lamp.
I opened the suitcase.
Tiny clothes inside. Mostly girl clothes. Pink socks, little sneakers, one stuffed rabbit with a missing eye. The second suitcase had women’s clothes folded neatly on one side and diapers stuffed into grocery bags on the other.
That’s when I heard the floor creak above me.
Not outside.
Inside the house.
I honestly froze.
The spare bedroom is at the end of the hallway upstairs, and for one second I convinced myself the noise came from the water heater or old pipes settling. My husband used to tease me because this house makes sounds all night long.
Then I heard somebody cough.
A child’s cough.
Very small. Very real.
Coming from the attic stairs.
I don’t even remember walking into the hallway. I just remember seeing the attic door slightly open when I know for a fact I’d closed it earlier that week putting away Christmas decorations.
I said “Hello?” and immediately felt stupid afterward.
Everything went quiet.
Then a woman’s voice answered softly, “Please don’t call anybody.”
I nearly had a heart attack right there.
A young woman slowly came down the attic steps carrying a little girl wrapped in one of my old blankets. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-three or twenty-four. The child looked sick and exhausted, cheeks all red from coughing.
The woman kept apologizing before I could even speak. Apparently her name was Daniela and she’d been staying there almost a month.
A month.
She said the man who rented my upstairs “sublet” the attic space to her after she left her boyfriend.
I told her nobody rented my upstairs because I owned the entire house.
That’s when she looked confused and said, “But Marcus said this was his grandmother’s place.”
I don’t have a grandson named Marcus.
Then I remembered the name on the prescription printout from the pharmacy earlier that week.
Marcus Hale.
Same last name as my dead husband.