When Vanessa Carter unlocked the front door of her home in Plano, Texas, she expected nothing more than a quiet evening.
Instead, the first thing she heard was hammering.
Then a man’s voice echoed from the back of the house.
“Bring the tile cutter in here!”
Vanessa stopped in the entryway.
For a moment, she wondered if she had somehow entered the wrong house.
She looked around.
It was her home.
The same hardwood floors.
The same hallway.
The same walls she had spent eleven years paying for.
But something was terribly wrong.
A thin layer of construction dust floated through the air. The sharp smell of adhesive came from the kitchen. Somewhere behind the wall, water was dripping steadily into a bucket.
Vanessa had returned from Chicago two days earlier than planned.
Her client conference had ended ahead of schedule, and the final dinner had been canceled. After three nights of hotel meals, uncomfortable conversations and forced networking, she had been looking forward to only three things:
