Chapter 4: The Man Who Heard Us
Claire soaked a blanket with the last bottle of water and pushed it against the vent.
Hope crouched beside her while I drove my shoulder into the panel.
“Stand back,” I said.
“I’m breaking it.”
“You already tried,” Ruth answered.
“The bolt is steel.”
Sophie’s cries had stopped.
That silence frightened me more than the smoke.
“Sophie!” I shouted.
“Answer me!”
A heavy crash came from the bedroom.
The panel shook, then a man’s voice called through it.
“Ryan?
Move away from the wall!”
I recognized Walter Pike, the neighbor who had complained about our fence, our dog, and even Sophie’s chalk drawings.
I heard another crash before the panel split inward.
Walter stood there holding a sledgehammer.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I saw your wife carrying Sophie to the car,” he said.
“The child was crying and kicking.
Then I smelled smoke and heard you shouting.”
“Did you call emergency services?”
“They’re coming.
Get everyone outside.”
He lifted Hope into his arms while I supported Claire.
Ruth followed us onto the lawn as two emergency vehicles turned onto our street.
A police detective hurried toward us.
“I’m Detective Lena Ortiz.
Which one of you is Ryan?”
“I am.
My wife took my daughter.”
“Your wife called us first,” Ortiz said.
“She claimed Claire broke into your house and tried to take Sophie.”
Claire’s hand tightened around mine.
“Melissa knew exactly what to say.”
I faced the detective.
“There are three people standing here who were confined inside that wall.”
“I believe something serious happened,” Ortiz said.
“But Melissa has legal documents naming her as Sophie’s mother.”
“She is Sophie’s mother,” I said.
“That doesn’t give her the right to disappear with her.”
Ruth held out the photograph.
“Start with this.”
Ortiz studied it.
“Who took the picture?”
“I did,” Ruth said.
“Five years ago, outside this same house.”
“We bought this place two years ago,” I said.
Walter shook his head.
“No, you bought it from a holding company.
Before that, it belonged to Melissa’s late aunt.”
I stared at him.
“How do you know?”
“My sister handled the property records.
Melissa asked her to keep the former ownership quiet.”
Claire sat on the ambulance step with Hope against her shoulder.
I walked toward them, but Claire stopped me with one sentence.
“You brought Melissa back into the house where she kept us.”
My legs folded beneath me.
I caught the edge of the ambulance door before I reached the ground.
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“Claire, I swear I didn’t know.”
“But you believed her letter.”
“It had your handwriting.”
“Because she made me copy it while Hope was sleeping beside me.”
Hope looked up at Claire.
“Why didn’t Daddy find us?”
Claire’s mouth opened, but no words came.
I knelt in front of Hope.
“Because I looked in the wrong places.
That was not your fault, and it was not your mother’s fault.”
Hope touched the birthmark on my neck.
“Will you look for Sophie now?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I will not stop.”
Detective Ortiz approached with a clear evidence bag.
Inside it was a partly burned metal box recovered from the hidden room.
“We found medical papers, a second birth certificate, and several memory cards,” she said.
“But Melissa emptied your joint bank account twelve minutes ago.”
My phone rang from an unknown number.
Ortiz motioned for me to answer on speaker.
Melissa’s voice filled the silence.
“You involved the police.”
“Where is Sophie?”
“She’s safe as long as you cooperate.”
“Let me hear her.”
A small voice trembled through the phone.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“Mommy says you don’t want us anymore.”
“That isn’t true.”
Melissa took the phone back.
“Come to the old Bellweather clinic alone.
If I see Claire or the police, Sophie disappears from your life.”
The call ended.
Ortiz reached for my phone.
“You cannot go alone.”
I looked at Claire, then at Hope.
“Melissa knows I won’t risk Sophie,” I said.
May you like
Claire stood and gripped my arm.
“That,” she whispered, “is exactly why she chose you.”
