Chapter 3: A Voice From Five Years Ago
I took the flashlight from my nightstand and aimed it into the passage.
The elderly woman caught my sleeve.
“My name is Ruth,” she said.
“If you still care about Claire, come quickly.”
“Claire disappeared five years ago.”
“No,” Melissa said, scrambling to her feet.
“Claire left you.”
A weak voice drifted from the hidden room.
“Ryan?”
My knees nearly gave way.
I knew that voice.
I pushed past Ruth and entered a narrow room with a mattress, empty water bottles, and a steel door at the far end.
A woman rose unsteadily from the floor.
“Claire,” I whispered.
Her hair had turned gray at the temples, but her eyes were the same.
She touched my face as if she did not trust what she was seeing.
“You came,” she said.
“I searched for you for two years.
Why didn’t you call me?”
Claire looked past me at Melissa.
“Because she took my phone, my identification, and my daughter.”
The little girl ran forward.
“Mommy!”
Claire fell to her knees and wrapped both arms around her.
I turned toward Melissa.
“You told me Claire had gone overseas with another man.”
“She did leave you,” Melissa snapped.
“I only stopped her from coming back when she changed her mind.”
Ruth raised the old photograph.
“You arranged everything.
The letter, the bank withdrawal, even the witnesses who claimed they saw Claire at the airport.”
“You have no proof.”
“I have five years of memories,” Claire said.
“I remember every lock you turned.”
Melissa pointed at her.
“Tell Ryan why you came to me that night.
Tell him what you were planning.”
Claire held the child closer.
“I asked you for help.
I did not ask you to imprison us.”
“Her name,” I said.
“What is the child’s name?”
“Hope,” Claire answered.
“She is your daughter.”
Melissa gave a sharp laugh.
“That is what Claire wants you to believe.”
Hope pulled down the collar of her faded shirt.
The birthmark curved below her ear exactly where mine did.
“I told her about you every night,” Claire said.
“It was the only promise I could give her.”
I looked at our four-year-old daughter standing beside Melissa.
“And Sophie?
What does any of this mean for Sophie?”
Melissa’s expression hardened.
“Sophie is mine.
Don’t you dare question that.”
“How did Claire and Ruth survive in here?”
“I brought food,” Melissa said.
“I kept them safe.”
“You locked a mother and child behind a wall.”
“They had warmth.
They had water.
Claire would have destroyed everything I built.”
Ruth stepped between us.
“Last month, Melissa stopped bringing enough food.
Hope found a loose vent and followed Sophie’s voice.”
Sophie reached for Hope.
“I gave her my sandwiches.”
Melissa seized Sophie’s wrist.
“Let her go,” I said.
“She is my daughter.”
“She’s frightened.”
“She should be frightened of Claire.”
Claire stood, still holding Hope’s hand.
“You have used that child as a shield long enough.”
Melissa pulled Sophie against her and backed toward the opening.
“Ryan, if you listen to them, you will lose both girls.”
“I’m not losing anyone.
Put Sophie down and give me your phone.”
“You always did choose Claire.”
Melissa shoved the wooden panel.
It slammed between us before I could reach her, and a metal bolt dropped into place on the other side.
“Sophie!” I struck the panel with both hands.
“Melissa, open this door!”
Sophie began crying beyond the wall.
“Daddy!”
Melissa’s voice came through the wood.
“If you want to see her again, forget what you found.”
Her footsteps faded.
A moment later, an acrid smell slipped through the vent.
May you like
Ruth lifted her face toward the ceiling.
“Ryan,” she said, “that’s smoke.”
