Footfalls sounded on the pavement as Alna walked along Netley Street, one hand grasping her purse. Her head was held high, brown locks falling upon her shoulders as she gazed straight ahead. She attempted to make her expression casual and inconspicuous––something that could be difficult. Especially when her mind was racing.

A man passed by her in a well-pressed back suit, shoulders thrown back as he carried himself with an air of dignity. Alna glanced at him, details flashing through her mind. But observing strangers wasn’t the reason she was here; at least, not random ones anyway.

When Alna finally reached the house of the late Zander Lewis, she stopped to look at it for a moment as a couple more people walked by, trying to fix her face into an expression of morbid fascination. She wasn’t sure how successful she was, although her reason for being here would be considered unusual by most people.

The house itself was nothing special—a two-storey building with wooden stairs leading to the deck out front, its exterior reddish brown with dark trimmings. As seemed typical for some houses, there were some flower beds along the foundation of the house, though grass seemed to be taking them over. From where Alna was standing, she could see two windows—a large one that likely led to a living room, and a small one that probably looked into a bathroom.

The house was innocuous. One would never know a man had died inside this house unless told so.

Alna stood for another moment, looking at it.

When the sound of footfalls faded a few minutes later (in which time a woman murmured a sympathetic “The poor man” on her way by), Alna glanced around. A car was meandering its way down the street, forcing Alna to wait another moment before she could walk across the yard and approach the house. Once it was gone, she leaped into action.

Veering off to the left, Alna approached the wooden fence that led to Lewis’ back yard and fiddled with it for a moment. She grabbed the latch on the other side of the gate and swung it open. Alna closed it behind her, casting a wary look at the street; the last thing she needed right now was to be caught breaking into a recently deceased man’s house.

When Alna turned around to take in the backyard, her eyes immediately caught sight of a small window with a flimsy white curtain covering it from inside. She crouched down and observed, judging whether she would be able to squeeze through. She glanced between the window and her slim waist a few times, concluding that, while it would be a tight fit, she could make do. And with the fence acting as coverage, she could likely be able to get in without being seen. Now she had to see if she could get the thing open while leaving no obvious signs of her presence.

Leaning forward, Alna’s quiet breaths fogged the window as she searched for its lock, locating it in the center of the indoor windowsill. This window, Alna observed, was the type that one need only slide upward to open it. Which meant all Alna needed to do was remove the lock inside.

Pulling a screwdriver and hammer from her purse, Alna inserted the flat end underneath the window, wiggling it around for a few seconds until she was satisfied that she had positioned it correctly. She hoped her quick research on the internet wouldn’t let her down now. Ana grasped the hammer. This wasn’t her first time breaking and entering, but she always had a niggling fear in the back of her mind that the methods she learned online would fail her.

Alna whacked once at the rounded end of the screwdriver, freezing at the sound it made. She looked around, spotting a house toward the back end of her target with a window that was positioned perfectly to see her. Why hadn’t she spotted it earlier? Getting ahead of yourself, are you, Miss Holt? Alna thought, chastising herself for her momentary lapse in judgement. She knew better than that. Alna studied the window for another moment, looking for any sign that someone might be peeking through it. Seeing none, she turned back to her task and hit the screwdriver a few more times, glancing around every once in a while. With grim satisfaction, she noted that the lock wiggled after five hits. When it popped and fell off a moment later, she smiled to herself.

Glancing around once again, Alna placed her tools in her purse with shaking hands and eased the window open with slow, deliberate movements. That done, she stuck her head inside and took in what appeared to be a bedroom, searching for any signs of life. Alna hadn’t seen any vehicles out front, but that didn’t mean no one was here.

When the house remained silent, Alna pulled back out and tossed her purse inside before inserting her legs into the opening, and edging herself downward. Her back was forced into an awkward angle, gravity pulling her body into a half arch. The window kept falling on her; the lock clattered to the floor. Her jacket and shirt rode up. Alna grimaced as she felt something dig into the ridges of her spine but continued until her feet hit the floor, and she could pull the rest of herself inside. That done, she adjusted her shirt, pursing her lips in distaste.

As she crouched down, Alna noted of her surroundings while brushing stray hair from her still-horrid wig away from her face. She was in a bedroom––Alna felt grateful that she hadn’t landed on the bed, lest she leave a mark of her presence that could not be erased. The floor was hardwood. The bed was unmade, its large and fluffy pillows rumpled and dark sheets pushed halfway down as if Lewis had been in a hurry, or he had been too lazy to bother doing anything about it. The slippers, however, were positioned next to the bed, ready for their next use, leading Alna to believe the latter.

Finding no evidence that Lewis kept his laptop in here, Alna swung her purse onto her shoulder and exited the bedroom. The police had confiscated the thing, leaving her to search through Lewis’ house for any sign that someone besides its resident had been there lately.

When Alna learned about the murder of Zander Lewis a few days ago, she was appalled and borderline disgusted with the police force’s sheer stupidity. She would not apologize for it, either.

The fact that they could write off Lewis’s death as yet another accident almost made Alna’s head spin. Lewis, as she learned from research, was diagnosed with a severe case of epilepsy years ago. When he came home a few nights previous, Lewis’s laptop had chosen a most convenient moment to flash on with an alert of some type. Lewis went into a seizure and, according to the files, had died a mere half an hour later. How could anyone write that off as a simple accident? Alna thought. If Lewis’s laptop alerting him was a regular occurrence, one would think he’d keep the thing closed to avoid such a problem.

As she crept through the silent house, an eerie sensation crept up on Alna. Not as if she was being watched, but as if she were in the middle of her own ghost story, intruding on a potentially haunted house. She knew that wasn’t the case.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Snap out of it, Holt, Alna ordered herself. You know better than that.

Glancing left and right, Alna took in every detail of the house, looking for any indication that someone might have broken in. When she came across a framed picture of Lewis and another man kissing, she stopped walking and peered at it with mild surprise. Well, that was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Whatever the killer’s motive was, they were not targeting any specific group.

What was this person after?

Shaking her head once, Alna proceeded through the house, stopping when she came across a carpeted living room. She removed her shoee, which were a size too big for her––in case she left footprints—and proceeded inside. There were more pictures mounted on the wall, some depicting Lewis and his boyfriend, others Alna assumed were his family. One, in particular, caught her eye. It was a group photo that depicted not only Lewis himself, but his boyfriend, and three women and a man who looked to be his siblings. The group had their arms wrapped around each other, Lewis holding his boyfriend close while the group grinned at the camera.

The pictures looked recent. Lewis’s family must have been able to accept his romantic inclinations, then.

Unwittingly, her mind turned to Marianna and the strain their relationship caused with her parents. Alna frowned.

She stepped forward for a closer look, immediately noticing an error. Almost every one of Lewis’s pictures were positioned perfectly straight on the wall—all except one. It was a couple’s photo of Lewis and his boyfriend, their arms wrapped around each as Lewis rested his head atop the other man’s flaming red hair.

The picture was off balance, barely even noticeable to the untrained eye, but off balance all the same. A discolouration in the light brown paint was visible to its right; a triangle that showed the corner of the picture’s frame had rested there. It might have seemed like a long shot to most people, but all of Lewis’s other photos were well cared for. His love for his family and boyfriend was apparent. And, even though it might not have been exactly appropriate, Alna smiled. Now that she had proof someone was here, she had a reason to keep looking into these so-called “accidents.” But she couldn’t leave yet; one could never gather too much evidence.

Turning around, Alna paused, considered, then turned back and moved Lewis’ picture back into place.

After that, Alna examined Lewis's house with care, looking for any more indications of a break-in. Searching the lock on the front door proved fruitless, as Alna was wary of exiting the house to observe it from the other end, so she went elsewhere. There was another bedroom that looked as if it was reserved for guests, a bathroom with a shower/bathtub that she didn’t spend much time in, and a kitchen. Alna gave this room a little more attention than she had the previous one, opening cupboards with gloved hands, occasionally pulling out her phone to use its microscope application.

The kitchen yielded nothing important, prompting Alna to go to the room she had left for last: the office.

The room was nothing remarkable: generic grey walls with a few more family photos, black carpet—likely new—that was soft underfoot, and a desk with an empty space, where the laptop had once been. The only thing worthy of note about the office was that, unlike the rest of the house, it was much more disorganized. Along both walls were dressers, papers scattered on top of them. Even the carpet was rather cluttered.

Alna walked forward, allowing her eyes to rake over the desk’s wood stained surface. There were some scratches here and there, but none that looked out of place. The spot where the laptop used to be was darker, while the rest of the desktop was more faded from years of being in the sunlight.

Seeing nothing of importance on top of the desk, Alna dropped to her hands and knees and crawled under it, nudging the chair out of her way as she did so. The lighting wasn’t all that good, so once again, Alna pulled her phone out and turned on its flashlight, shining it around. There didn’t seem to be much out of the ordinary, except for a small scratch near the back. Alna leaned closer, examining it. The scratch was short, precise, and not immediately noticeable unless one was looking carefully or caught sight of it. It also seemed a bit too deliberate to Alna, seeing as there appeared to be no other flaws on this part of the desk.

Shifting backward a bit, Alna ran her hands along the carpet, grinning when the slightest hint of dirt appeared, the small chunks bouncing a bit as they were moved.

Lewis, Alna observed earlier, wasn’t someone who walked around the house in outdoor footwear. He kept all his footwear in a closet by the front door, and there had been no mud anywhere else in the house.

“Perfect,” Alna said aloud. On instinct, she froze, listening for any sign that she was not alone, that someone might have heard her. She cursed her inability to keep her thoughts firmly inside her head at such a time as this.

Time to go, Alna decided, backing up some more before standing up. She’d gotten what she came for: confirmation that Lewis’ death had been a murder, meaning there was a seventy-eight percent chance the other accidental deaths were also deliberate.

Alna went through all the rooms she’d been in after that, making sure she had left no evidence of her presence. She cleaned up some dried mud by the window she’d come in through, placed the broken lock on the windowsill, and scanned for any stray hairs she might have shed––from her wig or otherwise. Once satisfied, she exited from the very window she’d come in.

Just as Alna was climbing out the window she entered through earlier, a vehicle pulled in front of the house, forcing Alna to escape through the back alley. There was nothing she could do about the broken lock. If anyone found it, they would likely conclude someone had been in the house. Not that that would be a horrible thing, as long as it didn’t somehow lead back to her.

She should discard the shoes and jacket, just to be safe.

***

The Holt house was silent when Alna got home, it being a school and work day for her brothers and parents. Thinking of school unwittingly brought her thoughts to a certain blonde and the date they’d had two days before. It was nice, talking to her again as they walked together in a park. Alna had been quite pleased to note that her interest in Marianna was still present; that she was more than a brief distraction from Alna’s boredom.

Realizing she had allowed herself to become distracted, Alna brought her mind to the present and hurried downstairs, where she turned on her laptop. Hacking into a computer that she had never come into physical contact with—or seen—was difficult, to say the least. Never mind the fact that she had been doing it for almost two years. Sometimes Alna’s boredom drove her to extremes to relieve it.

Three hours later, Alna finally hacked into Lewis’s computer, covering her tracks as she did. Without preamble, Alna searched through his information, eyebrows furrowing when she came across the generic message: Do laundry at eight.

Alna stared at the message sceptically, making a mental note to go through police interviews later. Something wasn’t right. With a little more research, Alna affirmed that Lewis wasn’t the type of person to set alerts on his computer. Which made sense, if he had epilepsy. Not to mention Alna doubted many people even knew they could set alarms on their laptops. Alna herself hadn’t known until she heard about Lewis’s death a few days ago.

Another fifteen minutes of searching revealed there to be a slight error in the computer’s coding, and, digging down even deeper, Alna came across some protective measures. The exact thing she used when hacking to avoid anyone figuring out it was her. Another half an hour and Alna finally worked her way through the protections, revealing a metaphorical back door the hacker had used. It wasn’t enough for Alna to track the person down, but it was the proof she needed that Lewis’s death wasn’t an accident.

A delighted smile appeared on her lips.

I’ve got you now.