PART 3
My heart began pounding.
I pushed the door open another few inches.
The first thing I noticed was the floor.
It was clean.
Not just clean.
Spotless.
The trail of salt and dirt I had tracked in that morning was gone. The shoes Liam had kicked beside the couch were neatly lined against the wall.
Then I looked at the kitchen.
I nearly dropped my purse.
The faucet wasn’t dripping anymore.
The loose cabinet door had been removed from its crooked hinges and repaired.
The pile of unopened mail that had been sitting beside the microwave had been sorted into neat stacks.
The broken drawer that had refused to close for months was sitting perfectly flush.
Even the flickering kitchen light was gone.
I took another step.
“Mom,” Liam whispered.
I didn’t answer.
My eyes had moved toward the living room.
Our old couch had been pulled away from the wall.
Behind it was a patch of damaged plaster I had been meaning to report to the landlord.
It had been repaired.
Not professionally.
But carefully.
Smoothly.
There was no hole anymore.
The torn seam on the couch cushion had been stitched together with dark thread.
The loose leg on our coffee table had been tightened.
And sitting on the table was a handwritten note.
My stomach dropped.
I didn’t want to touch it.
I picked it up anyway.
Three words were written across the front.
YOU DESERVE BETTER.
I looked at Liam.
“Where’s Marcus?”
“I don’t know.”
My voice came out barely above a whisper.
I checked the bathroom.
Empty.
The bedroom hallway.
Empty.
The kitchen.
Empty.
Then I noticed the front closet.
Marcus’s duffel bag was gone.
So was the old hoodie I had given him.
He had left.
But he hadn’t simply left.
He had spent the entire day repairing my home.
I stood there trying to understand what I was looking at.
Liam suddenly ran toward the kitchen.
“Mom!”
I followed him.
He was pointing at the refrigerator.
A sheet of paper had been attached to it with a magnet.
It was a list.
Things I fixed:
- Faucet washer
- Cabinet hinge
- Drawer track
- Door frame
- Couch seam
- Coffee table leg
- Bathroom shelf
- Bedroom outlet cover
At the bottom was another sentence.
I couldn’t fix everything. I’m sorry.
Liam looked at me.
“He fixed our house.”
“I can see that.”
“Why?”
I stared at the handwriting.
“I don’t know.”
Then Liam noticed something.
“Mom.”
“What?”
He pointed toward the stove.
There was a pot sitting there.
Steam curled gently from beneath the lid.
I slowly lifted it.
Chicken soup.
Carrots.
Potatoes.
Celery.
The kind of soup I used to make when Liam got sick.
Beside it was a loaf of homemade bread.
Still warm.
There was another note.
For Liam. He said he likes soup.
My throat tightened.
I sat down at the kitchen table.
Liam climbed into the chair across from me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he asked quietly,
“Do you think he’s coming back?”
I looked at the empty couch.
“No.”
I wasn’t sure whether I was answering him or myself.
But there was something bothering me.
Something I couldn’t explain.
Marcus had told us he was homeless.
He had told us he’d been injured at work.
He had told us the shelter was full.
But nothing about the man I had met the night before explained what I was seeing.
The repairs were too precise.
The handwriting was too careful.
The way he had diagnosed the faucet without even touching it properly.
The way he had immediately noticed the shifted door frame.
The way he’d looked at our electrical outlet.
He wasn’t just a man who knew how to fix things.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
And suddenly, I remembered something else.
The night before, while we were eating dinner, Marcus had asked a strange question.
Not about me.
Not about Liam.
He had asked,
“Has your landlord ever tried to enter without giving you notice?”
At the time, I thought it was an odd question.
Now it made my skin crawl.
I stood up.
“Liam, stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To check something.”
I walked toward my bedroom.
The door was locked exactly as I had left it.
My purse was inside.
The folder containing my documents was still where I’d put it.
Nothing had been touched.
I opened the folder.
Birth certificate.
Social Security cards.
Lease agreement.
Tax documents.
Insurance papers.
Everything was there.
I exhaled.
Maybe I had imagined the danger.
Maybe Marcus really was just a good man who happened to know how to repair things.
Then I noticed the lease.
There was something written on the back of the envelope.
Not in Marcus’s handwriting.
A phone number.
And beneath it, two words.
CALL ME.
My heart stopped.
I knew that handwriting.
It belonged to my landlord.
I had seen it on rent notices.
On maintenance forms.
On the warning letter he’d slipped under our door two weeks earlier.
I picked up the phone.
Before I could dial, Liam screamed from the kitchen.
“Mom!”
I ran.
He was standing beside the refrigerator, holding something in his hand.
A tiny black object.
“What is that?”
“I found it behind the fridge.”
I took it from him.
It was a small electronic device.
A camera.
My blood ran cold.
“Don’t touch anything else.”
I immediately pulled Liam away.
I stared at the tiny lens.
Someone had been watching us.
I grabbed my phone and called the police.
But before the call connected, another thought hit me.
Marcus had repaired the apartment.
He had been here all day.
He must have seen it.
He must have known.
And if he knew…
Why hadn’t he simply called the police?
Why had he left?
The call connected.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
I opened my mouth.
Then stopped.
Because suddenly, I remembered the note.
YOU DESERVE BETTER.
And beneath it, in much smaller handwriting that I hadn’t noticed before, were four words.
Don’t trust the landlord.
I looked at Liam.
Then at the camera.
Then at our front door.
And for the first time, I realized something terrifying.
Maybe Marcus hadn’t been fixing our apartment because he wanted to thank us.
Maybe he had been searching for something.
Something someone had hidden inside our home.
And whatever he had found had frightened him enough to disappear.
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