Chapter 4 of Echoes In The Walls

Jett started locking the doors inside his own house.

Not the front or back — the security system handled that — but the interior doors. Closets, guest rooms, storage. The forgotten room in the west wing, especially. He had Kenneth install new hardware on it — stainless steel, industrial-grade.

No one questioned Jett. Not really. They were used to his moods by now. Used to him doing strange things for reasons he didn’t explain. Perhaps he couldn’t explain.

He didn’t bother offering one this time.

What would he say?

“I think there’s a ghost living in my guest room. Or maybe a memory. Or maybe me.”

Instead, he just locked it.

But he was still listening.

_____

He set small traps. Quiet ones. A guitar pick balanced on the edge of a closet door. A sheet of tissue just inside the guest room threshold. A fine layer of baby powder dusted on the hallway tile.

And he checked them every morning.

For three days: nothing.

On the fourth, the pick was gone.

He stared at the closet door, its edge bare. The pick — red celluloid, from a box he kept in his studio — was gone. It had vanished.

He checked the floor. Nothing. No draft in the room. No explanation.

His chest tightened.

He didn’t tell anyone. Not yet.

Sure, maybe Maria or Kenneth closed the door, saw the pick, and took it . . . but he would have to ask them. Just to be safe.

_____

Later that day, Avery asked him about Dust // Glory, his solo record from 1995. The one that critics called “bloated” and “self-indulgent” but still sold two million copies on name recognition alone.

Jett stared at the track list she’d printed out.

“‘Cracked Heaven,’” she said. “That one’s always fascinated me. You talk about being followed by something — ‘a sound I can’t unhear.’ What was that about?”

He blinked at the paper like it was written in another language.

“I don’t remember that lyric.”

“It’s yours,” she said, not unkindly.

“I know it is.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “But I don’t remember writing it.”

“Do you remember the session?”

“Bits. Dave Navarro played on two tracks. I think we argued over reverb.”

Avery smiled faintly. “Sounds like Dave.”

“I drank a lot that year.”

“I read.”

He looked up. “What else did you read?”

She hesitated. “Articles. Interviews. Rumors.”

“About?”

“Your first breakdown. Mexico.”

Jett leaned back slowly. “That wasn’t a breakdown.”

“No?”

“It was a vacation.”

She smiled and didn’t press. Just made a note in her journal.

He watched the way her pen moved — steady, unafraid.

She was smarter than he wanted her to be.

_____

That night, Jett sat in the studio alone. The room was quiet except for the soft hum of the old tube amps, like sleeping machinery still dreaming of feedback.

He plucked a few strings on an unplugged Strat. The notes rang out small and tinny in the air.

Then — underneath them — he heard something.

Another note. Just one.

Wrong key. Slower. Deeper.

He stopped.

Silence.

Then — again — a note. Soft. Muted. Like someone playing behind a wall. Or under the floorboards.

He froze, fingers still on the frets.

A third note followed. A sour echo of the first.

He stood, walked to the wall. Pressed his ear to it.

Nothing.

He stepped back.

Strummed again.

One more faint echo. Fainter this time. Lagging behind like a child chasing its parent’s footsteps.

He turned off the light and sat in the dark, waiting, listening for the ghost.

_____

The next day, Maria again got no answer when she knocked. The west wing was still locked. She made it downstairs and found him asleep in the studio chair. He had a blanket over his shoulders and the guitar still in his lap.

She didn’t ask questions. Just left the coffee on the amp and walked away.

_____

That afternoon, Kenneth called Avery outside.

“You notice anything strange lately?” he asked.

Avery hesitated. “Define ‘strange’.”

“Not sleeping. Avoiding people. Hearing things that aren’t there.”

She sighed. “Yes.”

“You think it’s drugs?”

“No. He’s clean. At least as far as I know.”

“You think he’s losing it?”

She thought about this.

“I think he’s lonely,” she said at last.

Kenneth nodded slowly. “Lonely makes people do strange things.”

“So does guilt.”

He gave her a look. “You think he’s guilty?”

“He thinks he is. Of something.”

“Of what? I mean . . . can you guess?

She only shook her head, and they didn’t say anything else after that.

_____

That night, Jett lay awake in bed. The house stretched and creaked around him like an old ship on a black sea.

He’d locked every door. Checked every trap.

But the sound still came.

At 2:41 a.m., he heard footsteps in the hall.

Slow. Even. Confident.

He sat up, holding his breath.

Normally, he liked to think he wasn’t one to be scared. Last time he recalled was when he thought the stage went a little farther out than it did. He was showing off, jumped where he thought there was floor, ended up 10 feet down. Fortunately, he didn’t break anything except his guitar. But those ten feet into darkness had scared him.

He usually could see things coming. His first wife’s affair. His second wife’s leaving. He wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised.

The steps paused just outside his door.

Then, softly — too softly for a human hand — he heard the knob turn.

Just slightly.

Just once.

Then stop.

The door didn’t open. No shadow crossed the room. The footsteps did not return. Not then. Not that night.

But he sat awake until dawn, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, afraid that maybe, just maybe . . .

Maybe it wasn’t someone trying to get in.

Maybe, his thoughts said, it was someone trying to get out.

_____

(c) Secret Agent Man
info@secretagentman.net