Our family group chat is called Fam ❤️. Five people. Me, Mom, Dad, my sister Zoe, my little brother Sam. Tonight my phone buzzed and the header said 6 members. The new one had no name. No profile photo. Just a gray circle. Mom: "who is this??" Three dots. Typing. Then it sent one photo. Our living room. The couch. Dad's mug on the coffee table, still steaming. Taken from inside the house.

Dad: "Nobody move. I'm going downstairs." Me: "dad don't" Zoe: "DAD PLEASE" We all watched the chat instead of moving. The gray circle started typing. It typed for a long time. Way too long for what came out. One line: "Tell him to check the closet first."

Dad went anyway. We heard the stairs creak through the floor, one by one. Dad: "closet's empty. living room's empty." Mom: "then come back UP" Dad: "hang on. the back door is open." The gray circle posted a new photo. Dad. From behind. Standing at the back door with his phone in his hand. Me: "DAD BEHIND YOU" The three dots started again.

Dad spun around. We heard him yell "WHO'S THERE" right through the floor. Dad: "nothing. there's nothing here." The gray circle: "He's looking too low." Dad: "what does that mean" The gray circle: "Look up." The whole house went quiet. Then Dad's three dots appeared. And stopped. And appeared again.

Dad's message finally came through. Dad: "the hallway ceiling vent is open. there's a phone taped up inside it. it's still recording." The police found sleeping bags in the crawlspace above our bedrooms. Food wrappers. A charger spliced into our wiring. Someone had been living over our heads for weeks, listening to us fall asleep. They never caught him. We all deleted the app. It doesn't matter. Every night at 9:41, right when Mom used to say goodnight in the chat, my phone still buzzes once. I've stopped checking what it says.