Seventeen Calls into the Dark

1 I have a hoarding disorder. To anyone else, it was trash; in my hands, everything earned a second chance at life. During spring cleanings at the Oak Ridge Youth Home, while the other kids were hauling junk out to the curb, I was busy dragging it back in. A broken umbrella frame made a decent drying rack for socks; an empty baby formula tin was deep enough to grow scallions on the windowsill; a suitcase with cracked wheels, turned upside down and lined with an old towel, became a bed for the stray mutt behind the boiler room. Evelyn, the shelter director, put up with me for ten years. Eventually, standing in front of three basement storage units crammed to the ceiling with cardboard boxes, she held my hand with tears in her eyes. “Autumn, honey… the home is literally running out of room for your things.” I was seventeen when my biological parents finally found me and brought me back to the Sinclair estate. The welcome dinner hadn’t even started when Paige, the daughter they had adopted after I went missing as a toddler, came running down the curving stairs in tears. “She told me that as of today, my bedroom is hers,” Paige choked out, eyes red. “She said I need to pack my bags and get out.” My biological brother, Garrett, hardened instantly. “She just set foot in this house and she’s already pushing Paige out? Does she think she owns everything Sinclair now?” The family mounted a furious search for me, scouring the two-acre grounds. They finally found me crouched by the rear kitchen door near the commercial dumpsters. I was cradling eighteen heavy-duty, magnetic-closure seafood gift boxes that the caterer had been about to toss. “If you’re just gonna throw them out, let me have them,” I was saying, looking up at the sous-chef. “I’ll break down all your corrugated cardboard for you every night, I swear. Save you the haul.” Garrett’s voice cut through the damp evening air, cold and sharp. “You’re the one trying to kick Paige out of her room?” I looked up, only just noticing the semicircle of people standing over me, and my eyes lit up. “Do you guys have stuff you’re getting rid of too? Old coats, glass jars, broken chairs—anything is fine. Just give it to me.” A dead silence fell over the service entrance. Garrett looked down at me as if I were something scraped off the bottom of his shoe. “Why the hell are you collecting garbage?” “It isn’t garbage,” I corrected him immediately, keeping my voice gentle. “Look at these boxes. Coated cardboard, reinforced corners, magnetic flap. Lay down a sheet of parchment and it holds six pairs of socks. Or this one—the corner’s crushed, but you trim the lid off with kitchen shears and it’s a drawer organizer. Stack all eighteen against a wall and you don’t even need to buy an IKEA dresser.” The sous-chef looked at the box, then looked at me, seemingly convinced. He reached into his apron and handed me a spool of rough jute twine. “You want this too, kid?” I grinned. “Sir, you know the value of things.” Paige’s tears were still glistening on her cheeks, but her whole body had gone rigid. My biological mother, Eleanor Sinclair, pressed two fingers against her temple, looking exhausted before the night had even begun. “Autumn,” Eleanor said softly, her voice laden with caution. “Put those down. We have everything you could ever need here. You don’t need to scavenge.” I pulled the cardboard boxes closer against my ribs. “Having things now doesn’t mean you’ll have them later.” Eleanor flinched. Garrett cut in, his jaw tight. “Nobody is taking anything from you.” I nodded obediently. Everyone said that at first. The third foster family told me the left half of the walk-in closet belonged to me forever; two months later, my clothes were waiting on the porch in two black contractor bags. The seventh foster father said the shed in the backyard was mine to fix up; then his wife gave birth to a biological son, and he swapped the deadbolt on a Sunday afternoon while I was at library club. When adults say forever, it means the exact same thing as let’s get pizza tonight. It’s a passing thought. You listen, you nod, and you don’t bet your life on it. I carried my eighteen boxes up the back stairs behind them. The bedroom they had prepared for me was cavernous, bathed in gray linen and warm recessed lighting, but it was terrifyingly empty. There was no pile of laundry in the corner, no water ring on the nightstand from a forgotten glass, not even a speck of lint in the chrome trash can. I stood on the hardwood floor, a sudden draft raising goosebumps along my arms. Paige hovered near the threshold, speaking in a muted, careful tone. “Mom was afraid you’d feel uncomfortable with hand-me-downs, Autumn. Everything in here is brand-new from Restoration Hardware.” I hurried over to the bed, peeled the stiff plastic wrap off the Egyptian cotton duvet, folded the plastic into a neat four-inch square, and slipped it into my jeans pocket. “I don’t mind second-hand,” I said honestly. “Used things are better. At least you know they don’t break the second you put weight on them.” Garrett let out a dry, scornful bark from the doorway. “Listen to her. She’s turned being a pack rat into a philosophy.” That night, I stayed up late constructing an organizer wall out of the eighteen lobster crates. I strung the jute twine between two bedposts to hang my spare shirts, used the magnetic lids as vertical partitions, and sliced up the high-density foam padding to wedge under the headboard so it wouldn’t squeak against the drywall. It was past two in the morning when the perimeter felt solid enough for me to finally turn off the lamp. At seven sharp, a scream ripped through the upstairs hall. Paige burst into my room, brushed past me, and dropped to her knees, tearing open the bottom lobster box of my modular wall. Nestled inside, half-covered by brown packing shreds, was a vintage freshwater pearl hair comb. Paige pressed a hand to her mouth, her eyes welling up with practiced speed. “This was Grandmother Sinclair’s. Mom gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday… Autumn, wasn’t taking my place in this house enough? Did you really have to steal this too?” I stared at the shredded kraft paper around the comb. Yesterday afternoon, when I loaded those boxes in the kitchen, every single one had been empty. No one asked for my side. Garrett stepped forward and kicked the cardboard wall with his boot. The eighteen boxes collapsed into a heap across the rug, tumbling like dry bones. “Autumn Sinclair,” he said, his voice flat with disgust. “Not even twenty-four hours in this house, and you’re already a thief?” I dropped to my knees to gather the dented cardboard, but Garrett’s sneaker came down hard on the back of my hand, pinning my knuckles to the floor. “Don’t touch them.” He looked down at the mess, his tone freezing the room. “Starting today: for every single piece of junk you drag into this house, I throw one out. Let’s see how long this pathetic little compulsion lasts.” Garrett was a man of his word. At breakfast, the moment I finished washing an empty Bonne Maman glass jar at the sink, he took it straight from the drying mat and dropped it into the stainless steel trash chute. When I folded the brown paper bakery bag from the morning croissants, Eleanor gave a silent nod to the housekeeper, who whisked the entire basket away before I could touch it. Even the foil peel-off lid from a cup of Greek yogurt, which I had rinsed and slipped into my pocket, didn’t escape Paige’s sharp gaze. “Autumn,” Paige whispered across the table, her tone dripping with staged concern. “Did you take something again?” The dining room went quiet. Every pair of eyes landed on me. I pulled the foil square from my pocket and set it flat beside my plate. “If you flatten it, the scalloped edge works really well for scraping charred grease off the bottom of an iron skillet.” Garrett sneered. “Do you honestly believe this house is in desperate need of a discarded yogurt foil to clean its cookware?” “No,” I said after a moment, looking at him straight on. “You have everything. But it’s already here. It’s useful.” A muscle in Garrett’s temple twitched. By two that afternoon, Eleanor had brought in a clinical psychologist named Dr. Campbell. The woman walked through my room, peered at the remaining flattened packing materials under the bed skirt, and took frantic notes on her tablet. Her expression was solemn. “Severe hoarding behaviors in older adolescents almost always stem from catastrophic attachment trauma and deep-seated survival panic,” Dr. Campbell explained in the study, while I sat stiffly on the edge of a leather armchair. “If we don’t disrupt the cycle immediately, she will never develop the cognitive elasticity required for adult independence.” Eleanor leaned forward, her manicured fingers clasped tightly in her lap. “What do we do?” “Radical environmental separation,” Dr. Campbell replied. “A structured forty-eight-hour clean-room reset. The room must contain strictly the bed, the study desk, and three changes of approved clothing. During these two days, she cannot pick up, conceal, or negotiate for a single discarded item. If she weeps, issues ultimatums, or claims an item holds sacred value, the family must not capitulate. Consistency is the only cure.” Garrett nodded without an ounce of hesitation. “We do it.” Four professional home organizers wearing gray aprons marched into my room with fifty-gallon black contractor bags. Shoeboxes, plastic caps, a stack of local free weeklies, a plastic coat hanger with a snapped hook—they were shoveled into the plastic bags like biohazard waste. I trailed behind them, my hands hovering in the air, trying to catch the edges before the drawstring ties snapped shut. “Wait—that charging cable just has a frayed sheath! If you wrap electrical tape tight around the collar, it still conducts!” “That travel mug doesn't leak! The vacuum seal failed, sure, but it still works as an open water tumbler!” “Don’t throw those torn shirts out! The cotton’s worn soft—cut them into six-inch squares and they’re better than paper towels!” No one answered. The organizers worked with mechanical efficiency, their faces blank. Panic clawed at my throat. I turned and caught Eleanor’s wrist. “Mom, please. They’re good things. They’re still useful.” Eleanor covered my hand with hers, patting it gently, speaking in the smooth, low cadence one uses on a spooked horse. “Autumn, honey, I’m doing this to save you. Once you’re normal, you won’t spend every second of the day terrified that the Sinclairs are going to cast you out.” My fingers went limp. She knew. She had seen the panic in my chest, and she was using it as an operating room scalpel. “If I stay in the room for two days,” I whispered, “if I’m good… you won’t throw me away? Right?” Eleanor froze, her expression flickering with something uncomfortable. Garrett scowled from the doorframe. “Jesus, Autumn. Who said anything about throwing you out? Stop weaponizing your victimhood.” I nodded quickly, tucking my chin down. “Okay. Okay. I won’t touch anything.” Just then, an organizer dragged a thick, water-stained spiral notebook out from beneath the baseboard. Garrett reached down and plucked it from the organizer's hand, flipping it open casually. It wasn't a diary. It was an inventory ledger. “Eleanor’s ribbed wool cardigan. Left elbow frayed. Unravel yarn: enough for one pair of fingerless gloves.” “Mr. Sinclair’s empty Cardizem prescription bottles. Kept lot numbers and refill dates for future clinical cross-referencing.” “Garrett’s discarded Anker power bank. Swapped out the blown lithium pouch cell with one from an old speaker. Keep charged in his hall console for emergency business trips.” “Paige’s scuffed satin pointe shoes. Satin torn at the toe box, but ribbons are intact. Wash in cold water, donate to the girls’ shelter downtown.” Garrett’s face grew darker with every line he read. The air in the room thinned out. “You’ve been sleeping under this roof for barely thirty hours,” he said, his voice dropping into a register that made my spine ache, “and you’ve already been cataloging our discarded possessions like some sort of forensic stalker?” Paige clung to Eleanor’s elbow, her face pale. “Garrett… has she been watching us? Has she been going through our trash cans at night?” “I wasn’t stalking you,” I said, my voice rising in a desperate rush. “I just needed an audit trail. In case something went missing.” Whenever something disappeared in a foster home—a silver spoon, a ten-dollar bill, a pair of sunglasses—the foster parents always tore my bed apart first. After the fourth placement, I grew smart. Every single thing I picked up, I wrote down: the date, the location, the original owner, the state of damage. When they finally called the social worker to pack me up, I had the paperwork to prove I wasn’t a criminal. Before I could get the words out, Garrett took the top three pages of the ledger between his thumbs and ripped them clean from the wire binding. “Don’t dress up your voyeuristic sickness as being organized,” he snapped. The torn scraps drifted down onto the bare wood. Instinct took over; I dropped to my knees, reaching for the paper. Garrett didn't hesitate. He tossed the entire three-hundred-page ledger into the open mouth of the trash bag. “You broke the rule,” he said coldly, tapping the screen of his iPhone. “Day one violated. The clock resets.” On the white face of his phone, the 48:00:00 countdown blinked back to the beginning. That evening, Paige slipped quietly into my empty room. She held out a blue laminated plastic visitor badge on a lanyard. “Tomorrow the family has to go out to the old country estate upstate. The historical society is taking the furniture and clothing donations before the foundation starts the major renovation. I know how much you love old things, Autumn. I begged Mom to let you come along.” I looked at the badge, surprised. Paige reached out and took my fingers in hers, her grip surprisingly tight. “I’m sorry about this morning, Autumn. Truly. Not all of your things were thrown out.” She leaned in close to my ear, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “I saw someone load your vintage tin breadbox into the back of the utility truck. They took it up to the West Outbuilding at the estate.” My pulse spiked into my throat. I grabbed her forearm. That tin box could not be lost. There was nothing of monetary value inside. Just eleven folded index cards with eleven previous addresses, ten brass keys that no longer unlocked a single door in the world, and eleven formal notices stamped Termination of Foster Placement. Every time a family sent me back to the state, I placed one item inside. Not out of spite. I kept them because I was terrified that if I lost those scraps of paper, I wouldn't even be able to prove I had ever existed under a roof. Paige tapped the plastic badge. “When we get to the estate tomorrow, this keycard will swipe you past the perimeter gate. Just… don’t tell Garrett. If he finds out, he’ll dump it in the incinerator before you can touch it.” The Sinclair family’s ancestral property was a three-story Victorian estate sitting on five heavily wooded acres, currently wrapped in safety fencing and scaffolding. In front of the main house, folding tables were stacked high with vintage coats, brass lamps, and mahogany side tables tagged for the charity auction. The eastern barn served as the intake log station, while the southern driveway was jammed with moving trucks. The second my boots hit the gravel, I saw three wooden spindle chairs with cracked rungs leaning against the barn wall. A single wood screw and a strip of leather would turn them into plant stands for the porch. I stared at them for ten agonizing seconds before forcing my neck straight. Thirty-six hours remained on Garrett’s timer. Be good, I told myself, digging my fingernails into my palms until it hurt. Just be normal. If you’re normal, they won’t return you. Garrett was overseeing the inventory manifest by the trucks. When I stepped toward the sorting table to help fold quilts, he stepped into my path, his hand extended like a traffic cop. “Stand behind the yellow line,” he commanded. “You don't touch a single item today. If you leave here with empty hands, we’ll consider it a minor breakthrough.” I watched a mover hoist a vintage wooden picture frame toward a dumpster. “Wait,” I said under my breath. “There’s still a family portrait inside that matte.” “The historical society rejected it,” Garrett said without looking at me. “You still take the picture out first,” I whispered. “You don’t just throw someone’s face into the trash.” Garrett turned his head, his jaw clamped shut, his eyes dark with simmering rage. “Autumn, do you understand plain English? Shut up.” I closed my mouth. A moment later, while Garrett turned to sign a bill of lading, Paige brushed past me and discreetly pointed toward a muddy gravel path curving into the thick woods behind the carriage house. “Your box is on the top shelf of the West Outbuilding,” she whispered, checking her diamond watch. “The demolition crew starts the structural clearing at noon sharp. If you don’t grab it now, it goes into the compactor.” I glanced at my shattered phone screen. 11:42 AM. The blue badge beeped against the magnetic lock of the rusted iron door. The West Outbuilding was cavernous and damp, smelling of black mold and rotting horsehair insulation. Rows of towering, industrial steel storage racks stretched into the gloom, covered in years of undisturbed dust. “Hello?” I called out, my voice echoing off the corrugated roof. “Is someone working in here?” Silence. I jogged down the center aisle, scanning the racks, until my eyes caught the faded red-and-gold lithograph of the chipped Danish butter cookie tin on the third tier of the rear shelf. My chest caved in with relief. I scrambled up the rack, hooked my fingers around the cold tin rim, and dragged it against my stomach. The brass padlock was still hanging from the latch. The tin clinked with familiar, heavy metal. The suffocation that had sat on my lungs for two days finally loosened its grip. I turned to head back toward the light, but the heavy iron door at the far end of the warehouse slammed shut with a deafening metallic clang. The deadbolt engaged with a dull, heavy click. I sprinted toward the door, throwing my shoulder against the sheet metal. “Hey! Is someone out there? I’m still inside!” Through the thick door, the low rumble of a diesel engine sputtered to life, then gradually faded down the private gravel drive. I pulled out my phone. One single bar of service flickered in the upper corner. I opened my messages and sent a text to Paige: The door locked behind me. Please get the groundskeeper. Her reply arrived twenty seconds later: Autumn, give it a rest. You’re really going to hide in an outbuilding just to manipulate everyone into calling off the forty-eight hours? Nobody is buying it. I began frantically typing a reply when a sharp, violent crack echoed from the rafters above. A main load-bearing pine beam, rotted through from years of neglected roof leaks and weighted down by the morning’s steady downpour, splintered in half. The ceiling buckled inward with a roar of tearing nails and collapsing plaster. The industrial steel shelving above me swayed, groaned under the falling debris, and toppled forward like a steel wave. I didn't think. I curled into a ball, tucking the butter cookie tin beneath my ribs. The heavy steel crossbar slammed down across my lower right leg. A white-hot burst of agony tore through my skull; my vision flashed completely white, then went black for three agonizing heartbeats. When I came to, my right ankle was pinned beneath two hundred pounds of sheared angle iron and wet drywall. My phone had bounced three feet away across the damp concrete, its screen splintered into a web of glowing fractures. I stretched my arm until my shoulder nearly dislocated, my fingernails scraping against the grit, until I managed to drag the phone to my chest. I didn't waste time on a message. I dialed Garrett’s number. It rang six times. Seven. Eight. He finally answered, his voice dripping with annoyance. “Autumn, what dramatic stunt are you pulling now?” “Garrett,” I gasped, dust and plaster coating my throat. “I’m in the West Outbuilding. The ceiling collapsed. One of the industrial racks pinned my leg. I can’t move it.” A beat of absolute silence hung on the line. Then, faint but clear in the background, Paige’s voice drifted through the speaker: “Garrett, I told you. She’s doing this on purpose so you’ll feel guilty and break Dr. Campbell’s protocol.” Garrett’s tone instantly dropped twenty degrees. “Before you sneaked off to dig through more garbage, you should have considered the consequences.” “I’m not lying to you!” A sob broke through my ribs. “The rafters are snapping! It’s pouring rain through the roof, and the drywall is crumbling. Just call the caretaker! Have him unlock the door from the outside!” Garrett let out a bitter, exhausted chuckle. “Autumn Sinclair, Dr. Campbell was dead-on about you. If we fold even once, you will spend the rest of your life staging crises to get your way.” Click. The call went dead. My hands trembling violently, I dialed Eleanor. The first call rang out until it hit voicemail. The second call was instantly rejected. A moment later, the screen lit up with an incoming voice memo from her: “Autumn, sweetie, Mom knows how uncomfortable this sensory withdrawal is for you. But you need to stay strong. When the forty-eight hours are up, we’ll drive over and bring you home. Be a good girl.” I stared at the cracked ceiling twenty feet above. Cold, dirty rainwater began dripping steadily onto my shattered screen. They thought I was hiding in a closet somewhere, throwing a privileged teenager’s tantrum. I wanted to call back. I wanted to tell them that the western brick wall was visibly bowing under the structural strain of the downpour. But the timer on the home screen still read thirty-one hours remaining. I had promised to be good. I wedged the butter cookie tin deep into the triangular safety pocket between the fallen shelf and the structural foundation wall. Then I reached for the thick plastic industrial packing straps scattered around the debris. I took four strips of the woven polyester banding and braided them together with my teeth and fingers, forming a crude, high-tensile towline. I picked up a crushed tin lid, bent it in half to double its thickness, and used it as a wedge to pry against the steel bar biting into my crushed ankle. If they weren’t coming, it didn’t matter. These things—these discarded, unwanted, worthless pieces of junk that the Sinclair family despised—would keep me company. Just like they always had. By late afternoon, the convoy of moving trucks was preparing to pull out of the estate gates. The estate manager, holding a clipboard, scanned the parking area. “Excuse me, Mr. Sinclair. Where is your older daughter?” Paige lowered her eyes, wrapping her cashmere scarf tight around her throat. “Autumn took her bag and walked toward the commuter rail station an hour ago. She said she was done listening to us.” Garrett looked down at his phone. Seventeen missed calls from my number were lined up on the lock screen. He tapped the power button, plunging the glass into darkness. “Leave her,” he said, his voice flat. “She won't come back until she’s completely convinced she’s run us through the emotional wringer.” As the family’s Mercedes SUV turned onto the state highway, the torrential rain finally knocked over a rotting wooden barricade at the entrance of the western path. On the reverse side of the fallen board, painted in faded red industrial stencil, was a single line: CONDEMNED STRUCTURE. KEEP OUT. IMMINENT COLLAPSE HAZARD. During that first endless night, I disassembled every single scrap of material within arm's reach. I braided three more lengths of plastic banding into structural cables, looping them around the intact upright steel beam to relieve some of the weight pressing down on my ankle. I tore wet corrugated cardboard into strips, stacking them beneath my hips to elevate my torso above the water pooling on the concrete floor. I found a discarded clear plastic hardware tub, wiped the grit from it, and inverted it over my phone to protect the shattered motherboard from the ceiling leaks. For the first time in my life, I felt a deep, piercing regret: I hadn’t hoarded enough. If I still had that broken umbrella, I could have wedged it open above my face to deflect the falling mortar. If Garrett hadn’t thrown out the rusted hacksaw from the youth home shed, I could have severed the steel bolt pinning my leg. If my inventory ledger hadn't been incinerated, I would have had the estate manager’s direct landline memorized on page forty-two. Everything had been stripped away. All so I could be "normal." By daybreak, the muddy runoff had risen over the arch of my uninjured foot. My phone battery dropped to fifteen percent. I opened the camera app and held the lens up in the dark, recording a video for Eleanor. In the dim light, the frame captured only the outline of the butter cookie tin resting against my ribs. “Mom,” I whispered, my lips cracked, my teeth chattering uncontrollably. “I’m not acting out. The door really locked. My leg is crushed under the beam.” I watched the replay, then hit delete. If she heard me mention the tin, she would think I had relapsed. She would think the compulsion was talking. I tapped record again. This time, I forced my mouth into a small, polite smile. “I didn't pick up anything new, Mom. The tin box… it isn't new trash. It's just my old papers. Please send someone with a crowbar to open the iron door. The second I get out, I swear… I’ll throw the box in the dumpster myself.” I tapped send. The spinning gray wheel rotated for two minutes before a red exclamation mark appeared beside the thumbnail: Message Send Failure. I stared at the red mark. In the dark, my mind drifted back to the first time I was returned by a foster family. I was six years old. The foster mother had packed my three plastic dinosaurs and a coloring book into an apple crate, telling me that their new suburban house simply didn't have enough room for extra things. I sat on that crate on the front porch until the child welfare sedan pulled into the gravel drive at sunset. It wasn't until three years later that I realized: the house had five bedrooms and a two-car garage. It wasn’t that the house ran out of room for a cardboard box. It had run out of room for me. From that day on, I never believed anyone who told me they didn't have enough space. A house is massive. How could it fail to hold a ten-inch cardboard box? It was only ever the person they wanted to throw away. At noon, sixty miles away in the Sinclair family’s suburban sunroom, a private tailor was adjusting the hem of Paige’s silk birthday dress. Eleanor glanced at the empty seat at the dining table, a frown creasing her forehead. “Autumn still hasn't checked in with the gatehouse?” Garrett knelt, helping the seamstress align the invisible zipper along the spine of Paige’s gown. “Forget about her, Mom. She knows today is Paige’s seventeenth birthday luncheon. She’s dragging this out to hijack the spotlight.” Paige bit her lower lip, her reflection in the gilded floor mirror looking fragile and distressed. “Is Autumn punishing us because I told you about her tin box? Maybe I shouldn't have told her where the workers put it…” Garrett paused, his fingers freezing on the zipper pull. He looked up, his brow furrowed. “What do you mean, you told her where it was?” Paige’s eyes darted toward the window. “I… I just overheard one of the movers mention that the historical society dropped some miscellaneous storage in the west wing…” “Where in the west wing?” Garrett demanded, his voice suddenly sharp. Before Paige could answer, heavy, wet boots hammered across the hardwood foyer. The estate manager burst into the sunroom, completely drenched in rainwater, his breathing ragged. In his trembling hand, he held a blue plastic badge on a severed lanyard. “Mr. Sinclair,” the manager panted, his face pale. “We logged the keycard audit for the upstate renovation. The master clearance card for the West Outbuilding was checked out yesterday.” Garrett stood up slowly. “What outbuilding?” “The old carriage storage behind the stables,” the man stammered, his eyes wide with terror. “The entire roof and the western brick load-bearing wall collapsed around midnight. Mr. Sinclair… is there any chance someone was inside?” The sunroom went dead silent. Garrett snatched the card from the manager’s palm. On the reverse side of the blue plastic, the zone authorization was stamped in black permanent marker: WEST OUTBUILDING — TEMPORARY ACCESS. Eleanor stood up so fast her tea saucer shattered against the marble floor. Her face had drained of every drop of color. “Garrett… isn’t that Paige’s visitor badge?” Paige took a step backward, bumping into the three-way mirror. “I didn't know! She’s obsessed with garbage! She wanted to go in there—what does that have to do with me?!” Garrett didn't say another word. He turned and sprinted toward the garage. By the time the SUV tore through the iron gates of the upstate property, the digital countdown on Garrett’s dashboard hit zero. 48:00:00. The forty-eight hours were up. At that exact second, Eleanor’s phone, finally disconnected from the car’s Do Not Disturb driving profile, erupted with a machine-gun sequence of chimes.