Chapter 2
For one second, I could not move.
Then I hit the hidden door with my shoulder.
The frame shook.
The little girl screamed behind me.
Lily began crying in the bedroom.
Caroline grabbed my arm.
“Ryan, stop.”
I threw her hand off me.
“Who is behind this door?”
She shook her head.
“You don’t understand.”
“You keep saying that like it helps.”
I hit the door again.
Wood cracked.
Caroline lunged for my phone on the nightstand.
I saw her.
So did Lily.
My daughter ran and grabbed it first.
“Daddy!”
She threw it to me with both hands.
Caroline stared at her like she had been betrayed.
I dialed 911.
“There are people hidden inside my walls,” I said. “Send police. Send an ambulance. Send everyone.”
Caroline backed toward the hall.
“Ryan, you just ruined everything.”
“No,” I said, and hit the door a third time. “I found it.”
The lock split.
The door burst open.
A woman lay on a mattress inside the narrow room.
Beside her was a little boy, maybe three, curled against her chest.
The woman raised one thin arm to shield him.
Then she saw me.
Her face collapsed.
“Ryan.”
My knees weakened.
I didn’t know her.
But she knew me.
The little girl from the vent crawled past me and rushed into the woman’s arms.
“Mommy.”
The word struck me again.
Mommy.
Daddy.
All of it twisted together in a way my mind refused to accept.
Caroline whispered from the doorway, “She’s lying.”
The woman flinched at her voice.
I turned.
Caroline was staring not at me, but at the opened room.
At the child.
At the woman.
At the proof.
Sirens wailed outside.
The woman clutched the little boy closer.
“Please don’t let her take them.”
I stepped between Caroline and the hidden room.
“What is your name?” I asked.
The woman swallowed.
“Claire.”
“Claire what?”
Her eyes filled.
“Claire Mercer.”
The name meant nothing.
Caroline laughed once, high and brittle.
“Ryan, don’t listen to her.”
Claire looked at me as if every breath hurt.
“I was your wife.”
The police pounded on the front door downstairs.
Lily screamed for me.
May you like
The little boy started sobbing.
And Caroline turned to run.
