“Hey, Gavin, stay inside.” Dad sounded nonchalant. “We’ve got everything under control here.”
“It doesn’t look that way,” Mr. Donahue called out from behind his screen door.
“Please, just stay inside,” implored Aunt Jillian. I moved to step outside but my mom placed a firm hand on my shoulder. I noticed she didn’t shut the door, though. We both stood there watching and listening.
“You’re going to name me in a lawsuit? Are you serious? If you wanted out of this sale you had every opportunity—the hours I put in,” Mr. McGovern spat and sputtered.
“You neglected to mention the house came with its own stalker, McGovern. I’d call that nondisclosure.”
“You don’t know what you’ve done. This is my livelihood. You have a problem with the seller’s disclosure, fine. Then we go back to negotiations. But to hold me personally liable—”
“Just business.” And then, maybe because he heard how that came off as cold and unsympathetic, Janie’s dad added, “Really, I’m trying to protect my family.” That became the refrain we heard Mr. Donahue repeat to anyone who would listen. He said it again as Dad and Jillian loaded Mr. McGovern into his car. Later I’d read it in our local newspaper and then national magazines.
The Detroit Tribune came out with its headline: “Unreal Estate: Dream Home Becomes Family’s Nightmare.” Buzzbot ran a list: “10 Haunting Sentences from the Sentry’s Letters.” It took all of two days for the British tabloids to latch on to the story, with breathless accounts of death threats and a description of the Langsom house fit for a gothic novel. When Entertainment America picked up the story, it led with the image of Mr. Donahue standing on the front porch of 16 Olcott, his arms folded across his chest, with the familiar quote plastered below: I’m trying to protect my family.
But the more coverage the story garnered, the more vulnerable the Donahues became. Traffic suddenly choked our sleepy street, with cars slowing down in front of 16 Olcott to get a look. Whenever I spotted Ben—in town, in school—he wore a hoodie, his hands in his pockets, hunched over, exposing as little of himself as possible. Lucy wrote draft after draft of her college essay, but bristled when a tour guide recognized her while touring Wesleyan University.
Janie told me she’d overheard her parents fighting—that her mom had come home from the natural food market in tears because the checkout girl, who’d dated one of the older Langsom brothers, refused to ring her up. She avoided restaurants because she was convinced the waitstaff spat in her food. “They hate us, Gavin,” Janie heard her say the afternoon Mrs. Donahue had walked out of a salon, her hair dripping wet, because the ladies there were so hostile.
As far as Janie, it turned out that nothing reverses the tide of ninth-grade opinion as quickly as a lawsuit against the Langsom family. Glennon Heights wasn’t about to let outsiders knock them down.
You couldn’t blame Thatcher. The definition of a Good Guy, you could not have even detected a hardening of his jaw when one of the Donahue kids walked by. His eyes matched his fixed smile even as he stared right through them. He left the casual cruelty of social consequences to the rest of the kids at school.
No one sat with us at lunch. The first day after the news stories broke, Mirabelle at least bothered to look apologetically in our direction, but Brooke and Kaia just wrinkled their noses in disgust. When we arrived at school and tried to make our way to the locker area, people moved aside for me the way you do when you are all rushing around to get to class before the first bell. But no one gave way for Janie. She stood there, in the school entrance, sealed off by a wall of cold shoulders.
Maybe because I grew up in Glennon Heights, it was harder to completely cast me aside. Or maybe I just functioned as a useful contrast. Treating me like I still mattered reminded Janie that she didn’t.
The first day after the lawsuit went like that. Blank, frozen stares. Glowering faces. “Don’t worry about it,” I muttered to Janie under my breath. “The whole town’s gone crazy.”
Janie refused to acknowledge any of it. She threw her elbows around like a power forward driving to the basket. She reached our locker well before the first-period bell rang and spun our combination expertly. “Don’t worry about what?”
All the Donahues steadied and steeled themselves to make it through the day.
But nothing could have prepared us for what happened when we got home from school.
By the time the three o’clock dismissal bell rang, the Donahues and I counted among the first students barreling through the exit doors. Maybe they felt the facades they’d constructed crumbling, but I doubt it. All three of them greeted their mom with carefully composed cheer, even Ben, which only confirmed how fake it all was.
“Hey, lady,” he said heartily. “We expected the Dad-mobile.” We moved quickly, keeping our backpacks on as we climbed into the minivan.
“Nope, you’re stuck with me.” Mrs. Donahue spoke ruefully, as if already regretting the words that followed. “Your dad needed to meet with the attorneys this afternoon.” Beside me, Janie stiffened slightly. From then on, we all sat silently with smiles plastered on our faces, pretending nothing—including lawsuits—mattered.
When we arrived on Olcott Place, Mrs. Donahue slowed the van by my house, but Janie piped up. “Livvie’s coming over. We have homework.”
“If that’s okay,” I rushed to add.
“Of course! I think that’s great! Just let me know later if you’d like to stay for supper.”
I nodded vigorously and texted my mom to let her know I’d be home before dark. We even slammed the car doors politely.
Inside the house, the atmosphere still felt stilted. At first, I assumed that was all that was off-kilter. When Mrs. Donahue asked, “Who moved the dining room chairs?” I thought she was just fussing. The air felt thick and heavy, like someone was waiting to speak. Janie surveyed the contents of the fridge and Ben lingered at the kitchen stairs, looking puzzled. Lucy grabbed a plum from the fruit bowl on the counter and bounded upstairs. “Gotta go. Need to start homework,” she called down in her clipped tone of voice. It’s not like any of us would try to stop her.
Moments later, we heard Lucy scream.
The sound wound down the stairs and ricocheted throughout the house until it felt like the walls themselves were screaming. In the kitchen, Janie, Ben, and I stood frozen in our spots. Mrs. Donahue sprinted past and pounded up the steps. We followed.
“Lucy!” Mrs. Donahue called out. “Lucy, honey—what’s wrong?”
A white envelope, resting on her pillow—that’s what was wrong. The same cream stationery, the same handwriting. The inky block letters stood out as the only glimpse of darkness on the white layers of Lucy’s bed.
The Sentry had delivered another letter.
Not through the mail slot.
Hand-delivered to her bedroom.
With her name written across the envelope.
Mrs. Donahue and Lucy stood staring. Janie grabbed my hand and tugged me toward her room. We saw the second letter from the doorway, placed just so. Her full name written across the envelope: Jane Louise Donahue.
“He was in here too!” Janie shrieked. And then as the fact of it sunk in: “He was inside our house.”
“Don’t touch it—don’t touch anything.” Mrs. Donahue was all business, herding us together through the hall. “Ben? Where are you?” The three of us found him in his own room, glowering at the white note left on the tangle of blankets of his unmade bed. “Just leave it right where it is.”
“I heard you.” He held his hands up. His eyes didn’t move, like he was watching a snake, expecting it to strike.
Mrs. Donahue whipped out her cell phone. “I’m calling your father.”
“He was inside our house,” Janie kept whimpering. Lucy reached out to squeeze her shoulders.
“Gavin, please come home right away.” Mrs. Donahue leaned forward, examining Ben’s envelope more closely. “Yes. Three of them. On the children’s beds. I don
’t know! Somehow he got inside their rooms.” She paused, looking incredulous. “Who do you think I mean? The Sentry. He was inside our house.”
And then we heard a series of dull thuds, and maybe scraping against the wood floors. The noise broke Ben’s spell and he sprang into action. He pulled all of us farther into his room and brought his finger to his lips, hushing us. We heard another scrape, more thumping.
Mrs. Donahue’s eye widened. “Are you already home, Gavin?” She spoke low into the phone. “Is that you downstairs?” Her terrified face told us everything.
Lucy pushed us back with one arm and slammed the door closed with the other. She turned the flimsy lock and Ben set about moving the dresser in front of the door.
“Janie, call the police,” Lucy said, tossing over her phone before helping Ben move more furniture in front of the door.
Janie spoke urgently. “I need to report an intruder. Sixteen Olcott Place. Glennon Heights. He’s still inside our house. He’s still here.”
It felt like forever before the police arrived, but most likely it took minutes. They knew the route, after all. We spent every second braced against the dresser barricade, listening as thuds and thumps dragged along the house’s corridors. I kept waiting to feel the Sentry push against the door. I half expected him to claw through the floorboards or plunge through the ceiling. But there was just the four of us in the room and our ragged breath—Mr. Donahue yelling from one phone and the 911 dispatcher soothing us from the other.
When the sirens closed in, we nodded at each other with relief. But then we heard a frenzy coming from downstairs—thunderous crashes and the silvery sound of breaking glass.
The Sentry had heard the sirens too.
“Stay where you are until the officers identify themselves,” the operator instructed. “Wait for the police to give you the all clear.”
When they did, when we shoved aside the dresser and unlocked the door, we still didn’t feel safe emerging from Ben’s room. At least I didn’t. We banded together and took tiny steps forward, as Officer Wycoff guided us into the hallway and then down the steps. In the dining room, the chairs were lying on their sides. A hallway table had toppled over. Two kitchen windows had been shattered and shards of broken glass winked on the grass outside.
A female officer I didn’t recognize introduced herself as Officer Nicolodi. She led us out to the deck and we sat around the table, as if attending the worst cookout ever. That’s where we were when Mr. Donahue came home.
“Tell me you’re all okay,” he said, rushing out from the doorway.
“We’re all great, Dad.” Ben bounced his knee as he spoke—his adrenaline working its way out through movement and sarcasm. “Just a typical Thursday.”
“When I think of what could have happened—” Mr. Donahue started to say.
“While you were with your lawyer.”
“Ben, we’re all upset.” Mrs. Donahue stood up between her husband and her son. “Let’s not conflate all the reasons.”
But Ben spoke directly to his father. “You should have been here.” I caught myself staring at Mr. Donahue’s boat shoes. They didn’t look weighty enough to cause the ruckus the Sentry had made moving through the house. But all the talk about how Mr. Donahue should have been home focused my attention on his claim that he wasn’t.
I met Janie’s eyes across the table and could have sworn she read my mind.
“Will the lawyer tell the police about your appointment?” She actually asked it out loud.
Lucy’s mouth hung open and Ben let out a low whistle. “And what do you mean by that, young lady?” Mrs. Donahue demanded.
But Janie said, “Well the lawyer can’t lie. He’s not allowed to, right? People are saying all sorts of things … Maybe this will prove them wrong …” She trailed off and covered her face with her hands.
I felt ashamed sitting on their deck, evaluating alibis.
And yet. Mr. Donahue stood there, his arm around his wife. He spoke like he was at a news conference. “Listen—I understand that this has been hard for you, and that you disagree with the concept of the lawsuit. But that is a decision for your mother and me to make. Perhaps I should have been here to protect my family. But this lawsuit is another way to protect my family. That matter is not up for discussion.”
I stood up then. I could see the roof of my house from the deck. My mom would be home from work soon and Toby needed a walk. Slowly, I started to edge toward the sliding glass door.
“Livvie, are you okay?” Ben asked.
“Please don’t go home yet,” Janie pleaded.
Officer Nicolodi poked her head outside. “We need you all to sit tight for a bit. We’ll have a few questions, just as soon as we finish looking around.”
“My mom—”
“Oh, honey,” Mrs. Donahue rushed to say. “How thoughtless of me—of course we don’t want her to come home and panic.” She turned to the officer. “We need to call my neighbor.”
The policewoman beckoned her inside. “Why don’t you let me give you some language to use? It’s important that we don’t broadcast what happened today too widely—hopefully that will shake loose some new information.”
Right then Officer Wycoff came out to the deck as well. “We’re ready to take your statements now. Individually.”
So one by one we sat at the dining room table recounting the discovery of the letters, the commotion we heard. After that, we all gathered in the living room. Officer Wycoff held the letters in his hand, each sealed in its own plastic bag.
“Now we don’t get to read our own mail?” Mr. Donahue asked.
“It’s not exactly mail, Gavin.” Mrs. Donahue smiled apologetically at the officers.
“Correct,” Wycoff said. “They’re evidence. And really, there’s nothing particularly new here. Same basic content as the previous notes.”
“Except these are addressed directly to my children,” Mr. Donahue pointed out. “Would you characterize the language as threatening?”
“Yes. As threatening as previous communication—”
“And now we know he has a key. I’m sure you agree that changes things. You cannot simply dismiss this as some dumb prank.”
Officer Nicolodi looked pained. “We’ve never dismissed this situation. But you are correct. Entry into the home does indicate intensifying behavior. That means we will respond accordingly. We’ve dusted throughout the house for prints. We’ll increase patrols on the streets. Your family’s safety is top priority.”
Wycoff waved the sealed letters. “As soon as our tech processes these as evidence, I’ll forward you copies of their content. Let’s not read them aloud and add to the day’s trauma.”
Mr. and Mrs. Donahue both nodded—she enthusiastically and he grudgingly. There were forms to sign and follow-up appointments made at the station. After a while, they stood there awkwardly by the door, as if waiting for the last two guests to leave a party. Mrs. Donahue kept appraising the house’s disarray and the black fingerprint dust left splotched everywhere. She absentmindedly traced the door’s lock and then flinched.
Right when we thought the police were done for the night, when they finally headed out the same door they had burst through a couple of hours before, Officer Wycoff stopped and turned. “You know, come to think of it … There was something new in these recent letters. The suspect referenced the children sneaking around the neighborhood. Lurking in the parks in the dead of night: That was the phrase. It just struck me as odd. Given the previous letters, you’re all probably hyperaware of safety. Right?” Wycoff’s eyes traveled to each of us. “Nobody’s been out past curfew recently, nothing like that? No loitering in the park?”
At first my heartbeat quickened at the possibility of being discovered, the trouble I’d get into. Then I considered the rest—that the Sentry had been out there, in the dark, witnessing us. My heart stopped, as if I’d taken a line drive to the chest.
Eventually, Mrs. Donahue broke the thick silence. “Oh, we nev
er have to worry about that. Gavin and I are lucky that way.”
“Is that right?” Wycoff drummed his knuckles on the doorframe. Waiting. I looked at Ben. Ben looked everywhere but at me.
Finally he cleared his throat. “Yes. Of course that’s right.”
But of course that wasn’t true.
What was true was that everyone reacted to the new letters differently.
Ben stayed tense and guarded. His temper settled close to the surface and flared intermittently.
Lucy began to talk openly about moving in with her best friend’s family back in Massachusetts.
Janie didn’t say a word.
Mrs. Donahue had all the locks changed overnight and installed security cameras at both the front and back doors.
And Mr. Donahue decided there was one avenue we hadn’t explored yet in searching for the Sentry.
“I don’t want any of you to worry,” he said a few days later from the front porch. “These people are professionals.”
I sat on the curb diagonally across the street because that’s as close as my mother would allow me to get. Toby sat beside me and occasionally wagged his tail as if reveling in his position close to the action. It seemed like the whole neighborhood had emerged from their houses. Mr. Donahue wore a faded tie-dyed T-shirt, the standard costume of a man who believed in hiring the services of paranormal experts. The van parked in their driveway was midnight blue, with lavender lettering across the side that read GHOST ADJUSTERS.
“It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.” My dad had the mower out, but he’d pushed it way past our property line. I glanced at it and then up at him. “Stop staring at me or I’ll have to start the lawn mower.”
“Mr. Leonardo, could you please explain your methods to my children? Just how do you intend to rid the home of evil spirits?” As Mr. Donahue spoke, he stared past Janie, Lucy, and Ben sitting listlessly on the steps of the front porch. Instead he looked intently at the Channel 5 Alive news station van, which idled in front of Miss Abbot’s place. “What kind of evil spirits do you sense? Are we in danger at this very moment?”
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