and kissed him on the forehead, rubbing her nose against his. “Good night, sweet face.”
She flicked on his night-light and turned off his lamp. She was going to shut the door behind her, but then thought better of it. If he was afraid, closing the door might make him feel trapped. She didn’t want to frighten him any more than he already was.
Maggie went back to her room and tucked herself into bed. She lay there listening to the sound of Max crying and her heart hurt. She had to keep telling herself this was for his own good.
After a few hours, Max’s crying stopped. Maggie, unable to sleep, reached over to her bedside table and turned on the lamp. She picked up that morning’s paper from the tabletop. Maggie never read the paper before work like most people. If she came across a bad story, she’d go to work in a funk that would last all day and that wasn’t pleasant for anyone. But sometimes after work or at night when she had a few moments alone, she liked to browse through it.
She flipped through the pages until a headline on page four caught her eye. Maggie’s heart pounded so loud in her ears she thought her eardrums would burst. Her palms grew slick with sweat and her mouth felt dry.
A man named Edgar Forest had recently been released from prison after kidnapping and murdering three small children twenty-five years before. He’d snatched the children from their bedroom windows while they slept. He was supposed to check in with his parole officer, but never showed. The police were looking for him as he was considered to be “mentally unstable and extremely dangerous.”
Edgar. Maggie dropped the paper on her comforter and threw the sheets back. The feeling of dread she’d felt before Colin’s death, the feeling she’d felt when Max first told her about Edgar, shot through her like a lead bullet.
She raced down the hall to Max’s room calling his name. At the doorway in the dark, she could barely see. His night-light was out. She was sure she’d turned that on before she left the room. Reaching over to the switch on the wall, Maggie flicked on the lights.
A gut wrenching scream ripped from her throat.
Max’s bedroom window was open. On the window’s edge was a man’s hand print smeared in blood.
THE STORYTELLER