Chương 3
She stopped before reaching them, as though even she understood that moving too far might look like flight.
Outside, somewhere beyond the curtains, a car passed on the street.
Its tires made a soft rushing sound against the pavement.
The normality of it was grotesque.
Someone was driving home with groceries.
Someone was arguing about dinner.
Someone might be walking a dog three houses away.
Inside Daniel’s daughter’s bedroom, a stranger appeared to be sealed behind a wall.
Daniel took out his phone again and checked the time.
The police had been called less than three minutes ago.
It felt like twenty.
He looked at the wardrobe.
“Is there actually a hidden space back there?”
Vanessa folded her arms.
Daniel waited.
Her silence answered him.
“How long has it been there?”
“I don’t know.”
“You live here.”
“So do you.”
The words hit cleanly.
Daniel had no defense against them.
He knew the mortgage rate.
He knew when the property taxes were due.
He knew the basement sump pump had to be reset after heavy rain.
He did not know there was a concealed space behind his daughter’s wardrobe.
Claire had handled the renovations when they bought the house.
Daniel had been traveling four days a week then.
He remembered signatures, invoices, paint samples sent as photographs.
He did not remember plans.
Vanessa watched the recognition pass across his face.
“You see?”
“See what?”
“You don’t know this house as well as you think.”
“That doesn’t explain why you know about it.”
Her mouth opened.
A siren sounded faintly in the distance.
Vanessa’s face went still.
Then she moved toward the door.
Daniel stepped in front of her.
“Where are you going?”
“To meet them downstairs.”
“No.”
“You called them.”
“You can meet them right here.”
Her eyes hardened.
“I am not your prisoner.”
“No, but Sophie was.”
Vanessa slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Sophie screamed.
Daniel did not move for a second.
Vanessa stared at her own hand as if surprised by it.
A red mark began forming along Daniel’s cheek.
“Daddy.”
“I’m okay.”
He did not take his eyes from Vanessa.
She backed away.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“You keep doing things you don’t mean.”
“That is not fair.”
Daniel laughed once, without humor.
“Fair?”
Vanessa’s composure broke.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
Daniel heard Sophie breathing behind him.
He lowered his voice.
“Tell me who’s in the wall.”
Vanessa looked toward the wardrobe.
The siren grew louder.
“Tell me now.”
She swallowed.
“I don’t know his real name.”
Daniel stared at her.
Sophie pressed both hands over her mouth.
“You locked a man in my house and you don’t know his name?”
“I didn’t lock him in there.”
“Then who did?”
Vanessa shook her head.
“It’s not that simple.”
“It rarely is when somebody says that.”
“He came here because of Claire.”
The name stopped Daniel.
Vanessa watched him carefully.
“He said he knew what happened the night she died.”
Daniel’s hand went to his jacket pocket.
The memory card seemed suddenly heavier than metal.
“What did he say?”
“I didn’t believe him.”
“What did he say?”
“That Claire didn’t die where the police found her.”
Daniel felt the room tilt slightly.
The official report had been simple enough to memorize against his will.
Claire’s vehicle had gone through a guardrail on a rural road outside the city shortly after midnight.
She had been found inside.
There had been no other vehicle at the scene.
No evidence of foul play.
A wet road.
Speed.
Fatigue.
An accident.
Daniel had built twenty-two months of grief around those facts.
Vanessa looked at his hand resting over the pocket.
“He said there was video.”
Daniel’s mouth went dry.
“The card.”
She nodded.
A heavy knock came from behind the wardrobe.
Then a man’s voice, hoarse and weak, carried through the wood.
“Please.”
Sophie began crying again, but quietly this time.
Daniel stepped toward the wardrobe on instinct.
Vanessa grabbed his arm.
“Don’t open it.”
He pulled away.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what he’ll do.”
“You said you didn’t put him there.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
Footsteps thundered somewhere downstairs.
A man shouted, “Police!”
Daniel raised his voice.
“Upstairs!”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
The man behind the wall coughed violently.
Daniel heard the bedroom door open behind him and turned to see two uniformed officers enter with their hands near their holstered weapons.
One took in Sophie’s wrists.
The torn pillow.
The cooling straightener.
Vanessa’s face.
Daniel’s raised hand.
The second officer looked toward the wardrobe when another weak thud came from behind it.
“Who’s back there?”
Daniel answered before Vanessa could.
“We don’t know.”
The first officer looked at him.
“Step away from it.”
Daniel pulled Sophie toward the bed.
Vanessa stayed where she was.
The officer pointed at her.
“Ma’am, over there.”
She moved slowly toward Daniel.
“No.”
The officer’s voice sharpened.
“Other side of the room.”
Vanessa obeyed.
The second officer approached the wardrobe cautiously.
He opened the first door.
Dresses and winter coats hung inside.
Nothing else.
He moved them aside.
The back panel looked ordinary.
Sophie tugged Daniel’s sleeve.
“The button.”
The officer glanced at her.
“What button, sweetheart?”
Sophie pointed.
“Under the shelf.”
The officer crouched.
His flashlight beam moved along the cedar shelf.
He reached underneath.
There was a click.
Daniel had lived in the house six years.
He had opened that wardrobe dozens of times.
He had never heard that sound.
A narrow seam appeared in the wooden back panel.
The officer drew his weapon.
His partner did the same.
“Police.”
No answer came.
The officer pulled the concealed panel outward.
A dark space opened behind it.
The smell reached the room first.
Stale air.
Sweat.
Something medicinal.
The flashlight beam entered.
Daniel could see a man sitting on the floor with his back against unfinished plaster.
May you like
His hands were bound in front of him.
There was dried blood along one side of his face.
