Back inside, she unpacked the equipment methodically, her focus sharpening with every clip and cable. She installed the night vision camera in her bedroom window, angling it to face the daisy bushes still crushed from the night before. Motion sensors were affixed to every door and window, each one blinking to life. She synced the devices to her laptop, the feed flickering onscreen like quiet sentinels. If anything moved tonight—she’d know.
Then came the thermometer. For weeks now, she had felt it—cool, inexplicable drafts brushing past her skin even with every window sealed tight. She’d dismissed them at first. But now, holding the infrared device in her palm, she had the means to test what her body already feared. She started in the bedroom, where the numbers held steady. Twenty-two degrees Celsius. Nothing unusual.