Chapter 3: What the Basement Held
The stairs were narrow and the light at the bottom was a single bare bulb on a cord.
I took them two at a time.
The smell hit me first — damp concrete, stale air, something medicinal underneath it all.
Then I saw the cot against the far wall.
The folded blanket.
The plastic tray with a water bottle and a half-eaten piece of bread.
And her.
She was sitting up.
Barely.
Her wrists were thin in a way that made my throat close.
Her hair, which I had always known dark and thick, was lank against her shoulders.
But her eyes — her eyes were the same.
"Joel."
My name in her voice.
After eleven years.
My legs stopped working.
I grabbed the metal shelf beside me to stay upright.
"Nora."
She tried to stand and couldn't.
I crossed the room in four steps and caught her before she went sideways off the cot.
"How long," I said.
My voice didn't sound like mine.
"How long have you been down here?"
"I don't know." She pressed her face against my shoulder the same way Perrin had, upstairs, twenty minutes ago.
"Weeks.
Maybe more.
I lost count."
I heard footsteps on the stairs behind me.
Slow ones.
Deliberate.
Rhea.
She stopped at the bottom step and leaned against the wall with her arms folded, and the fear I had seen on her face in the hallway was completely gone.
"Now you know," she said.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
I looked at her over Nora's head.
"Call the police."
"And tell them what?" Her voice was almost bored.
"That your ex-wife, who everyone in this city believes d*ed in a car accident three years ago, is alive in your basement?
Think about how that sounds, Joel.
Think about who they'll look at first."
My hand tightened on Nora's arm.
"They'll look at me," I said.
"They'll look at you," Rhea agreed.
"The grieving widower.
The man whose fiancée just happens to find the body — the living body — in his own home." She tilted her head.
"I've been very careful.
Everything in this house points to you."
Nora made a sound against my shoulder.
Not a word.
Just a sound that meant she had heard this before.
That she had been listening to this version of things for a long time.
"She's been planning this," Nora whispered.
"From the beginning.
She told me.
She wanted me to know I had no way out."
"You still don't," Rhea said pleasantly.
I set Nora gently back on the cot and stood up.
"How did you do it?" I kept my voice level.
"The accident.
The funeral.
There was a body."
Something moved behind Rhea's eyes.
Just for a second.
"There's always a way," she said, "when you know the right people."
"Whose body was in that casket?"
The pleasant expression didn't waver.
But she didn't answer.
That silence told me everything I needed to know about how deep this went — and how much I still didn't understand.
"I'm taking Nora upstairs," I said.
"And then I'm calling the police.
And if you try to stop me, I will physically remove you from this house."
Rhea unfolded her arms.
She reached into the pocket of her jacket and held up her phone.
On the screen was a photograph.
Perrin.
Asleep in his bed.
Taken recently — the duvet cover was one I had bought two months ago.
"Perrin is a sweet boy," she said.
May you like
"I'd hate for any of this to become confusing for him."
The room went very quiet.
