On Saturday morning, before everything went wrong, the grand gong of the doorbell groaned differently. It was a bloated sob that ricocheted off the walls of Troy’s home until it petered into a distant scream before vanishing altogether. Troy would later think of that twisted sound as an omen—a sign that whoever stood uninvited at the threshold of his family’s normal, happy life should not be acknowledged, even if it meant never opening their front door again.
