The man stood just past the threshold, dripping rainwater onto the old wood floor. He didn’t look around like most people might, not with the curiosity of someone entering a stranger’s home for the first time. He didn’t glance at the photos on the walls or the antique mirror above the fireplace. He looked at her.
“You said one call,” Mita reminded him, holding the poker low at her side.
“Yes.” He glanced toward the kitchen, where the landline hung on the wall like an antique.
She watched him closely as he walked over. He didn’t rush
When he picked up the phone, she caught the flicker of something strange across his face. He pressed the receiver to his ear… then frowned.
“No dial tone.”
“I know,” Mita said. “The line’s been spotty all week.”
He put the receiver down carefully. “You have a mobile?”
“Dead,” she lied again.
“Strange,” he said, but he didn’t sound surprised. “Storm must’ve knocked it all out.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You knew it wouldn’t work.”
He looked at her, and for a second, something unreadable passed over his face.
“I hoped it wouldn’t,” he said.
Silence. Just the sound of the storm outside, the tick of the clock above the mantle, and Oliver’s soft growl from the couch.
Mita’s grip on the poker tightened.
“You have five seconds to explain,” she said. “You lost someone,” he said gently. “Your husband. Two years ago. Sreezon.”
Her blood went cold.
“You were in town,” she said, voice hoarse. “You asked about me.”
He shook his head. “No. I didn’t need to.”
“Then how?”
He turned to face her again. “I didn’t come here by accident, Mita. And I didn’t lie about the car. It’s there. But I came because it’s time.”
She blinked. “Time for what?”
The man studied her, eyes soft but unreadable. “To tell you the truth. About what happened to Sreezon. About why he never came home that night.”
A beat of silence passed between them.
Mita took a step back. “Get out.”
“I can’t.”
“You need to leave. Right now.”
“I will,” he said, voice calm. “But not until you remember. She stared at him, heart pounding. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
But she did.
A tiny part of her — a part long buried — had always wondered. Always feared.
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