Welcome to case closed. You're listening to The Shadow House by Anna Downs, narrated by Natasha Beaumont and the author. Let's pick up where we left off last week.

Alex, chapter 16.

Over the next few days, my unease only seemed to grow. I tried to think calmly,

rationally. You're just exhausted, I told myself again. It's the night mind like the girls said tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick

I kept busy with meetings and party prep volunteering for games and entertainment as well as food prep.

I avoided being alone with Kit by taking Kara on baby playdates and helping out at the greenhouses.

The distractions helped, but I was still plagued by black clouds of worry.

I kept hearing odd noises, both outside and inside the house.

I felt watched somehow, a constant crawl just under my skin.

And then one afternoon, when Kara and I were returning home from a walk,

as I pushed open the front door of our unit and walked inside, the feeling intensified.

Once, many years ago after dropping Ollie at daycare, I'd hurried out into the car park and accidentally got into a car belonging to

another mom. I'd open the door, sat down in the driver's seat and tried to fit my key into

the ignition before I realized that the car was not mine. It looked like mine from the model

and colour right down to the handbag on the passenger seat and the lip gloss in the cup holder.

But the bag was a different style, the gloss a different brand.

The disorientation had made me feel seasick as though everything around me was suddenly liquid instead of solid.

Walking into our unit that day was a lot like that, except my house was still my house,

the room was the same, the furniture and belongings all definitely mine, and yet somehow they were not. I looked around trying to pinpoint the problem. I stared

at the fridge. Was it just me or were the magnets muddled, the photos out of place?

The books on the shelf looked odd too like they'd been swapped around.

The cushions on the sofa seemed to be arranged differently and there was a two-inch

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