I walked quickly to the front window and parted the curtains.

A sheriff’s deputy vehicle was parked near my porch, its lights painting the wet leaves in violent shades of red and blue.

A man in a yellow slicker was stepping out of the driver’s side.

He carried a clipboard under his arm, shielding it from the rain.

He walked up the wooden steps, his heavy boots thudding against the pine.

Before he could even reach the brass knocker, my phone on the kitchen counter began to ring again.

It was a number I didn’t recognize.

I let the phone ring as I walked down the hall.

The wooden floorboards were cold under my bare feet.

I reached the kitchen counter and picked up the receiver.

“Meredith, don’t hang up,” my mother’s voice gasped through the line.

“It’s three in the morning, Denise,” I said.

“They’re coming for the cabin, Meredith, they found a loophole in the old deed,” she whispered, her voice shaking.

Outside, the heavy thud of the deputy’s boots reached my front porch.

The brass knocker rattled against the thick oak door.