He did not look like a furniture maker tonight.

He looked like a debt collector.

He closed the door behind him with a slow, deliberate click of the broken latch.

“Where is he, Kiera?” Marcus asked.

His voice was low, vibrating through the small, narrow hallway.

I took a step backward, my heel hitting the edge of the kitchen stove.

The photograph of the woman in the yellow dress crinkled inside my apron pocket.

“Thomas isn’t here,” I said, trying to keep my voice from cracking.

“He is at the workshop. He is working the night shift.”

Marcus let out a dry, humorless laugh that ended in a rough cough.

“No, he isn’t,” he said, stepping deeper into the warm kitchen.

“Thomas hasn’t been at the workshop since nine o’clock.”

He stopped under the overhead light, the yellow bulb casting deep, harsh shadows under his heavy brow.

His eyes swept over the kitchen, lingering on the floorboards, then on the stove, and finally on my face.

“Then where is he?” I asked, my chest tightening.

“That is what I came to ask you,” Marcus said.