SHOW HOME - Chapter 7
The Lie
Mark
Another morning standing at the glass wall, watching the light change across the valleys and moors. The air was still, the sky high and pale. I’d given up pretending to look for work on my phone; the Opportunities icon sat unopened, a small, insistent shape near the clock. It was Wednesday and I hadn’t even stepped into my office yet.
Being replaced by a machine hadn’t just emptied my schedule, it had made me feel obsolete. I had spent twenty years learning to think critically, to apply a specific kind of human friction to complex systems and now it didn’t matter that my brain could do that. Nobody would ever learn those skills again. I was a living relic, staring into the deep time of mountains and bygone ages.
Then Chloe appeared.
She walked across the manicured lawn towards the edge of our plot. She wasn’t due to start at the new school until next week, another loose end from the move. She stopped near the low stone wall that marked the boundary, phone held out. She angled it, adjusted her position, capturing something. Testing the signal range, maybe. Or just bored, taking selfies.
A minute passed. She stayed there, scrolling, head down. Then, from the direction of the other house, David Preston walked into view along the gravel path that skirted the property line. He stopped on his side of the low wall, maybe ten feet from her. Casual posture. Hands in the pockets of his immaculate trousers. He said something. Chloe looked up, surprised, then smiled. Not her usual tight, ironic curve. A wider smile. Open.
Too open, for a girl who usually treated adults like background noise. She hadn’t smiled at me like that in years.
They spoke. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could see the rhythm. His calm, measured cadence. Her quicker responses. He gestured towards the moorland. She nodded, pointed back towards our house. Normal neighbourly chat. Except it wasn’t stopping.
He lifted a foot and leaned on the wall towards her, showing interest. She mirrored the posture, one scuffed trainer resting on the stone. They closed the gap to just a few feet. She laughed. It didn’t look like her usual dry, cutting laugh. It looked… pleased. Cooperative. The pause stretched; neither of them moved.
He said something else. She looked down at her phone, then held it out towards him, across the boundary wall. He took it. Held it easily, his thumb moving across the screen. Showing him her phone? Why? Asking for help with the app? Showing him pictures? Of what? He tilted the screen, pointed at something and got his phone out. She leaned closer to see, her head near his shoulder for a second. An easy physical proximity she never allowed her parents, not anymore.
My stomach tightened. Proximity. Duration. Asymmetry of relationship. Risk flags were lighting up in my head. I couldn’t see their faces or what they were doing with their phones. What was he doing with my daughter’s phone?
After a minute or so he handed it back. She took it, still smiling that open smile. They straightened up, breaking the closeness, about five feet apart. Still talking. Another minute passed. What was there to discuss for this long? It felt too sustained. Too… engaged.
He gestured again, a small, placating movement with one hand. She nodded, tucked her phone away. He said something final. She laughed again, filled with brightness. He gave a small wave and walked back the way he came, disappearing behind the curve of the landscaping. Had he only left his house to speak to her? Had she left the house to speak to him? No. Surely that was impossible.
Chloe stayed there a moment longer, looking down at her phone, the smile fading into something more neutral, almost calculated. Then she turned and walked back towards the house.
I met her as she came through the sliding glass door into the living area. The air she brought in was cooler.
“What was that about?” I asked. My tone was level. Neutral inquiry.
She shrugged, trying to move past me towards the kitchen. “Just our neighbour. Being neighbourly, I guess.”
I stepped into her path.
“Neighbourly for five minutes? About what?”
She stopped, sighed. That teenage sigh that carries the weight of parental stupidity. “I asked him about the app. Settings and stuff. He knows how it works.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“Because he was right there and it came up.” She tried to step around me.
“What did you show him on your phone?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I just told you. The app.”
“What part of the app?”
“The settings.”
“Show me.”
“No.” Flat refusal.
“Chloe.”
“It’s my phone, Dad.” Her hand went to her pocket, gripping the device.
There it was. Deflection. A boundary drawn exactly where the questions got specific.
“Did you give him your number?” I asked.
“Why would I give some old dude my number?”
“I just didn’t like the way he was talking to you.”
“Have you heard yourself?”
Sarah walked in then, drawn by the shift in the room’s tension. “What’s happened?” she asked, her voice neutral, already assessing.
“David Preston,” I said. “I saw him flirting with Chloe.”
“Surely not.”
“Dad, you are so cringe. I told you. He was just helping me with the app.”
“You were leaning against each other. You gave him your phone. Your heads were practically touching.”
“What you see and what actually happens aren’t always the same though, are they?”
She scowled. Her insinuation was that I was overprotective. I had embarrassed her on a couple of occasions: a waiter on a family holiday in Greece, a boy from the year above who had started hanging around.
“Don’t talk to your Dad like that.”
“What? He was helping me with the app. So what?”
“It sounds innocent enough,” said Sarah, appealing to my better nature.
“It didn’t look innocent.”
“Gross,” said Chloe. “You are literally sick.”
“Did he touch her?” asked Sarah. “What was it?”
“It was the way they were talking. I just wanted to warn her. It’s not all sweetness and light when men act like that. Particularly older men.”
“God, Dad. I’m not an idiot.”
“Can we just wind this down please?” said Sarah.
“There’s only one person who needs to wind down,” said Chloe, stomping towards the Oak wall, the panel opening extra quickly for her.
Sarah watched Chloe go, then turned back to me. Her expression wasn’t angry, just tired. The look she used to give me before we got here. A look that said, Is this really necessary?
“It sounds like a misunderstanding. He’s our neighbour. I’m sure he was just being friendly.”
“I know what I saw.”
“I don’t think we should be implying that she’s not safe up here. We just uprooted her entire life.”
“But what if she’s not safe?”
“Try not to make everything a fight with her, Mark,” she said, her voice flat, already decided. “You know how you two get. Besides, if he was some kind of predator, I doubt he’d be out there coercing her in plain sight.”
She picked up her laptop from the island and walked back towards her office.
“I don’t trust him,” I said, but it fell on deaf ears.
The oak panel slid shut behind her.
She didn’t see it. The rehearsed charm, the calculated proximity, the way Chloe had relaxed into his presence. He was good. He knew exactly how to dismantle boundaries, one neighbourly conversation at a time. I’d thought we would at least be safe from men like that up here.