Chapter 3
I caught Caroline at the stairs.
She fought me like a stranger.
Her nails scratched my wrist.
Her eyes were wild.
“Let me go.”
“No.”
“You don’t know what they are.”
I stared at her.
“They are children.”
Her face twisted.
“They are a mistake.”
That was when the front door burst open.
Police flooded the foyer.
I raised both hands.
“My wife tried to run,” I said. “There are three people hidden upstairs.”
Caroline went still.
The officers separated us.
One stayed with me.
Two took Caroline.
The rest rushed upstairs with paramedics.
Lily ran into my arms barefoot and shaking.
“Daddy, is Mia bad?”
“Mia?”
“The girl in the wall.”
I held her so tight she gasped.
“No, sweetheart. She is not bad.”
“Mommy said secrets are bad only if people find them.”
My heart broke in a new place.
Paramedics brought Claire out first.
She was too thin.
Her skin looked gray under the hallway light.
She kept one hand around Mia’s wrist.
The little boy, Noah, screamed when anyone touched him.
I stepped forward.
He reached for me.
I froze.
Claire whispered, “He knows your voice.”
“How?”
Her eyes went to Caroline.
Caroline stood near the stairs in handcuffs, silent now.
The first officer asked if I knew Claire.
“I don’t remember her,” I said.
Claire heard.
Pain crossed her face, but she nodded.
“She told me you wouldn’t.”
“Who?”
Claire’s eyes stayed on Caroline.
“Your wife.”
At the hospital, they took blood.
Mine.
Mia’s.
Noah’s.
Claire’s.
A detective named Harris arrived before dawn.
He asked when we bought the house.
“Five years ago,” I said.
“Who handled the purchase?”
“Caroline.”
He wrote that down.
Then he showed me a document found in Caroline’s locked desk.
The deed was under a trust.
Claire Mercer Trust.
My house was not mine.
It had been Claire’s.
Detective Harris looked at me.
“Mr. Coleman, we believe this started before you remember.”
“What does that mean?”
Before he could answer, a nurse rushed in.
May you like
Claire was awake.
And she was asking for her husband.
