Claire Called 911

This time, Claire didn’t walk outside.

She didn’t approach the house.

She called police and watched through her upstairs window.

The woman remained on the porch.

Then the light went out.

By the time officers arrived, she was gone.

Again.

Police searched the house.

Again.

Nobody was inside.

But this time, something had changed.

One officer came across the street holding his phone.

He showed Claire an old photograph.

“Is this the woman?”

Claire looked.

The image appeared to have been taken years earlier at a neighborhood block party.

She recognized the face immediately.

“Yes.”

The officer looked uncomfortable.

The woman in the photo was Evelyn Price.

The former owner of the house.

The woman neighbors said had disappeared six years earlier.

There Was One Problem

Evelyn wasn’t missing.

Not anymore.

Police records showed that Evelyn had been located several months after she left Hawthorne Lane.

She had voluntarily moved out of state.

There had been no crime.

No kidnapping.

No unsolved disappearance.

According to investigators, she had eventually contacted relatives and confirmed she was safe.

Claire stared at the officer.

“So she’s back?”

“Possibly.”

“Why would she sneak into her old house?”

“We don’t know that she did.”

“You just showed me her picture.”

“I said the woman resembles her.”

Claire asked whether police could contact Evelyn.

The officer said they would try.

The next morning, Claire received a call.

Evelyn Price had died fourteen months earlier.