The teacher told her not to worry.
A month later, Lily disappeared walking home from a friend’s house.
Her backpack was found beside a drainage ditch two days afterward.
Lily was never found.
Lucas never forgot that she had warned somebody.
He also never forgave himself for having heard about the warning only after she vanished.
That history was why, when Nora spoke seriously, Lucas never answered automatically.
At seven forty-three, the wind shifted.
Cold air pushed through the alley behind the building and found every crack in the old structure.
A loose sheet of metal rattled somewhere outside.
Nobody paid attention.
The speaker was playing loudly.
Jojo was telling a story about a gas station outside Phoenix.
Miller was in his office finishing paperwork.
Nora looked down at her sketch.
Then the back door rattled.
Once.
A small sound.
Metal against metal.
She stopped drawing.
Her pencil remained suspended above the paper.
The door rattled again.
This time longer.
Walsh glanced toward it.
“Wind.”
Nobody answered.
Nora kept staring.
She knew that door.
She had watched people use it hundreds of times.