📞 “Are You Alone?”: The Partnership, 1992

Chapter 1: The Lie at 10:47

The ritual had become the absolute zero point of my existence, the moment when the whole world outside the boundaries of this isolated farm faded into noise.

Every night, for three relentless months since Harold’s passing, the silence of the old farmhouse was shattered by the precise chime of my cell phone at exactly 10:47 PM. Not 10:46, not 10:48. Precisely 10:47.

It was Albert. My son.

I used to dread the calls; now, I simply existed for them. I found myself hovering near the phone, watching the clock tick down, a prisoner waiting for the key in the lock.

And every night, he asked the same question, the words stripped bare of warmth or affection: “Are you alone?”

If I said yes, he hung up instantly. No goodbye. Just a click, a void of sound, leaving me to the oppressive stillness of the house.

If I said no—which happened once when my neighbor stopped by with a casserole, and another time when the cable repairman overran his appointment—his tone would harden, the soft edge of my son dissolving into something sharp and unforgiving. “Who’s there, Mom? Who’s with you? Tell them to leave.”

He always justified it as “security protocol.” A single, elderly woman living on a sprawling, secluded property needed vigilance, he claimed. Since Harold’s fatal heart attack three months prior, Albert had taken over managing everything—the farm finances, my health appointments, and, most aggressively, my solitude.

But yesterday, that invisible chain snapped. Maybe it was the oppressive weight of the past ninety nights, or perhaps it was the way his voice had tightened when I mentioned getting a new security system installed. Whatever the catalyst, the question, usually a routine irritation, felt suddenly like an accusation.

Why does he need to know so badly?

The truth was a heavy, dull certainty: Albert wasn’t protecting me from the outside world. He was protecting me for it.

I smoothed the floral fabric of the cushion, took a deep, centering breath, and picked up the phone.

“Are you alone?”

“Yes,” I told him softly, letting my voice convey the resignation he expected. “I’m alone.”

He hung up instantly.

No warnings. No rambling about security. Just a cold, abrupt silence that hit me with the force of a physical blow. The absolute finality of the click was more terrifying than his usual, lingering check-ins.

The stillness that followed was unbearable. It felt as if the air itself had been sucked out of the room. I could hear the oppressive, heavy tick of the grandfather clock in the hall, each second counting down to an unknown threat. I tried to calm my nerves, sinking into my late husband’s armchair—the one upholstered in faded tweed, positioned perfectly to face the long, skeletal expanse of the orchard.

That’s when I heard it.

It wasn’t a sudden, violent crash. It was small, precise, and utterly terrifying.

The click of the kitchen door handle.

My stomach twisted into a painful knot. I had locked that door. I always lock that door—the rusty latch on the old oak back door was the last thing I checked every night before heading to bed.

Through the narrow gap where the living room met the kitchen, a faint shadow shifted. It was deliberate, cautious, a sliver of darkness moving against the pale moonlight filtering through the dusty windows. Someone was there. Watching. Testing the lock. The air in the room became thick, suffocating.

I didn’t move. I barely breathed. My blood hammered in my ears, drowning out the grandfather clock.

Then, the sound of footsteps. Slow. Measured. Retreating.

The back door remained closed, the lock apparently holding.

I sat there, frozen, for what felt like an hour, waiting for a second attempt, a breaking of glass, a confrontation. Nothing came. Only the wind starting to pick up in the orchard, making the old trees groan like tortured spirits.

When I finally dared to stand, my legs were shaky, pins and needles surging up my calves. I crept into the kitchen, my heart still lodged in my throat.

The kitchen was empty. The door was still latched. Nothing seemed disturbed—the silverware drawer closed, the spices aligned.

But the table.

There was a crisp, white envelope resting precisely in the center of the worn pine kitchen table. It hadn’t been there five minutes ago. Whoever was here was close enough to place something—not just slip it under the door—and retreat in the brief moment after Albert’s call ended.

.

.

.

Chapter 2: The Partnership, 1992

My fingers trembled as I reached for the envelope. The paper was heavy, expensive stock, a jarring contrast to the rustic, threadbare surroundings. There was no address, no stamp, just my name, handwritten in a looping, elegant script I didn’t recognize.

I tore it open.

Inside was a single, faded photograph. It was a picture of a younger me and Harold. We were standing in front of the very farmhouse I now occupied, twenty-five years ago. I was barely twenty-five, Harold was thirty. We were tanned and beaming, clutching a tiny, bundled baby Albert—who couldn’t have been more than six months old—to our chests.

It was a perfectly ordinary, beautiful memory.

But we were not alone.

Standing stiffly beside us were two unfamiliar faces: a woman with severe dark hair and a man with a tired, kind face, wearing glasses. They were dressed in cheap, synthetic matching windbreakers, looking less like friends and more like business associates—or perhaps, guards. They were utterly absent from my memory.

My gaze dropped to the back of the photo. Written there, in smeared black ink that looked years old, were three chilling lines:

“The Partnership, 1992. Some debts never expire.”

My throat went dry, constricting my ability to breathe.

1992. The year we bought this farm. The year Harold came home, pale and shaking, with a battered leather briefcase filled with what must have been nearly fifty thousand dollars in cash. He’d told me a rambling, improbable story about a dead uncle’s unexpected inheritance. He’d never had an uncle. Not one he’d ever mentioned.

I remembered his nervousness in the months following that purchase. He had insisted on paying cash for the house, refusing to use a bank mortgage. He started drinking heavily. He kept a hunting rifle cleaned and loaded under the mattress, a habit that always terrified me. And he had always insisted we use the back door, securing it with three different locks.

He’d claimed it was paranoia about living so far from the city. I see now it was fear of a debt collector.

Before I could fully process the terror of the note and the implication of Harold’s twenty-five-year lie, the phone rang again.

The sudden, shrill noise made me drop the photograph, which fluttered down onto the dusty floor. I snatched the receiver, my hand shaking violently.

It was a blocked number this time. Albert’s calls always showed his name. This was different.

“Mrs. Diane Hartwell?” a man’s voice said. Deep, polite—but urgent, like a doctor calling in the middle of the night. “My name is James Thornton. I’m an attorney. I apologize for the late hour, but your son has been intercepting my calls.”

My heart stopped, the rhythm replaced by an icy dread. “Intercepting your calls? Why would he—”

“I represent the estate of Catherine and William Morse,” he continued, his tone cutting through my confusion. “You’re listed in their will, Mrs. Hartwell. I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks, but the line keeps routing to a voicemail belonging to your son, Albert Hartwell.”

I looked wildly at the photograph lying on the floor. I bent down and picked it up. My eyes fell on the strangers beside Harold and me. Catherine and William Morse?

“What did they leave me?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, the question driven by a desperate need to find a benign explanation for the note and the intruder.

He hesitated. The slight pause on the line amplified the growing danger. “They’re gone, Mrs. Hartwell. They died in a fire six weeks ago. But they’ve left you something… something your son is determined to keep from you.”

The room seemed to tilt. The orchard outside groaned in the rising wind, a sound like tortured wood.

“What are you saying?” I demanded, gripping the phone until my knuckles were white.

The voice on the line lowered, becoming conspiratorial, urgent.

“Tell me—has your son been calling every night? Asking if you’re alone?”

Chapter 3: The Intercepted Life

The sudden chill of understanding was worse than the terror of the intruder.

“Yes,” I whispered, staring at the blurred faces of the Morses in the photograph. “Every night. 10:47. For three months.”

“That’s what I suspected,” Thornton said, a terrible calm in his voice. “Albert has been running interference. He knew the terms of the Morse will; they stipulated that you, and only you, must sign the documents within 90 days of their passing to claim the inheritance. They died on August 15th. Today is November 14th. You have exactly one day remaining.”

Ninety days. Three months. The exact duration of Albert’s nightly ritual.

“But why?” I stammered, feeling sick. “Why would he do this? He’s my son. He said he was protecting me.”

“He might believe that, Mrs. Hartwell,” Thornton said dryly. “But he’s certainly protecting himself. The Morses didn’t leave you money, ma’am. They left you the truth about 1992. And that truth, I believe, is tied directly to your husband’s ‘inheritance’ and the mysterious organization that came to be known as ‘The Partnership.’”

Thornton explained that Catherine Morse had contacted him six months before her death, insisting on a highly unusual will. It left her entire meager estate—a small, safety-deposit box in an obscure bank—to Diane Hartwell, with the strict time-limit clause. If Diane failed to claim it in time, the contents would be legally liquidated, and the funds donated to a local church.

“Catherine believed Albert was already involved in whatever illegal activity your husband was engaged in,” Thornton revealed. “She said if she left the money to Albert, he’d hide the contents. If she left it to you, he’d stop at nothing to prevent you from getting it, but at least he wouldn’t kill you for it. They saw him as the keyholder to their secret.”

The final, devastating puzzle piece clicked into place. I looked down at the kitchen table, where the white envelope rested. The timing was too perfect: Albert calls, he hangs up, the intruder—likely a hired hand of Albert’s—tests the door, places the photo as a final, desperate warning, and retreats.

Albert’s calls were never to protect me. They were to make sure I stayed alone—alone and cut off from anyone who could deliver the truth, especially a lawyer trying to execute a will that carried the weight of a twenty-five-year-old secret.

The weight of the betrayal was crushing. Albert hadn’t just intercepted my calls; he had intercepted my entire life since Harold died, managing my grief, isolating me from friends, monitoring my movements. He was controlling the narrative, ensuring the farm remained the quiet burial site of the Partnership, 1992 debt.

“Mr. Thornton,” I said, my voice now cold and focused, the trembling gone, replaced by a terrible resolve. “I have exactly one day. Tell me what I need to do. And tell me, honestly, how dangerous is this inheritance?”

Thornton sighed, the sound crackling over the line. “Very, Mrs. Hartwell. Very dangerous. The Morses hinted that what they left you isn’t a key to the past. It’s a key to the present, a piece of information that could destroy some powerful people who were part of that 1992 debt. People who would happily let a little old farmhouse burn down with you inside if it meant keeping that secret buried.”

I glanced back at the kitchen door. The intruder had been here. They were close. Albert knew I was on the line now. The game of silence was over.

“I’m leaving the farm tonight,” I stated. “Where do we meet, Mr. Thornton?”

“The bank is an hour north, in Helena. It opens at 9 a.m. I will meet you at the Great Falls Public Library. Corner of Second Street and 4th Ave, precisely 6 a.m. Don’t call me again. If you call, Albert will know exactly where you are. Just drive, Mrs. Hartwell. And trust no one.”

I hung up. The phone felt hot in my hand. I looked at the dark orchard outside. The wind was a wail now, shaking the windowpanes.

I had to get out. But I couldn’t just leave. I needed leverage.

My eyes fell on the old leather briefcase, dusty and forgotten, tucked away in the back of Harold’s closet. The one that had contained the cash from the “dead uncle” twenty-five years ago. If the Morses had left me the truth, I needed Harold’s lie.

I grabbed a worn canvas bag, tossing in a spare set of clothes, the photograph, and Harold’s old hunting knife—the only thing he hadn’t cleaned in years. I retrieved the keys to my car, checking the fuel gauge.

Before I left the kitchen, I walked to the old pine table. I picked up the white envelope. With a black marker, I scrawled a single, devastating sentence across the front, then placed it exactly where the intruder had left their warning.

It was addressed to Albert.

“I’m not alone anymore.”

Then, I slipped out the back door, securing the locks behind me, and plunged into the cold, dark silence of the Montana night. I didn’t know what ‘The Partnership’ was, but I knew the game had just changed.