DON'T OPEN THE ATTIC

The previous owners left one rule.

They broke it.

Prologue

June 14th — Three Years Ago

The Hargrove family moved out on a Thursday morning.

They didn't say goodbye to the neighbors. They didn't call the movers they'd scheduled for Saturday. They simply loaded what fit in their car — two suitcases, a box of photographs, the dog — and left the rest. The furniture. The dishes. The children's drawings still pinned to the kitchen corkboard.

Mrs. Hargrove was seen in the driveway at 4:47 AM by Gerald Finch, who lived across the street and sometimes walked his arthritic spaniel at odd hours. He would tell the police later that she looked wrong. Not scared, exactly. Something past scared. The way a person looks when fear has run its course and come out the other side.

She was carrying something to the car — a bundle of papers, it looked like. Gerald called out to her. She stopped. Turned.

"Don't buy that house," she said. Just that. Her voice was flat, like the words had been ironed out of expression.

Then she got in the car and drove away.

The house at 14 Ashford Lane sat empty for three years, two months, and eleven days.

Nobody asked about the attic door. Nobody had reason to.

Until the Calloway family signed the papers.