PART 2 — THE SOUND BEHIND THE WALL
“I hear it,” I said.
Jesse stared at me, his face pale.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
The backyard suddenly felt too quiet.
No mower.
No traffic.
Not even the birds seemed to be making noise.
Then it came again.
A weak, muffled sound from inside the house.
“Help…”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
This time, there was no mistaking it.
Someone was inside my daughter’s house.
And whoever it was needed help.
“Call 911,” I told Jesse.
He immediately pulled out his phone.
I moved toward the back door.
“Mr. Whitmore,” Jesse said sharply.
I stopped.
“You told me nobody is supposed to be in there.”
“I know.”
“So maybe you shouldn’t go inside.”
Every instinct in me agreed with him.
But another thought had already taken control of me.
Liam.
My seven-year-old grandson.
He was supposed to be staying with Evan while Clara was away.
At least, that was what Clara had told me.
But what if something had changed?
What if Liam was inside?
I rushed to the back door and tried the handle.
Locked.
“Clara!” I shouted.
No answer.
“Liam!”
Silence.
Then—
THUMP.
The sound came from somewhere deeper inside the house.
Jesse lowered his phone.
“They’re sending police and an ambulance.”
“How long?”
“They said a few minutes.”
A few minutes.
Normally, that would have sounded fast.
Standing outside a house where someone might be dying, it sounded like an eternity.
I pulled the spare key from my key ring.
Clara had given it to me after the divorce.
I slid it into the lock.
Before turning it, I looked through the small window in the back door.
The kitchen appeared empty.
Nothing seemed disturbed.
A coffee mug sat upside down beside the sink.
The counters were spotless.
The chairs were tucked beneath the table.
Exactly as they had been when I stopped by that morning.
Except for one thing.
The basement door was open.
I knew immediately something was wrong.
Clara hated leaving that door open.
When Liam was younger, she had installed a childproof latch on it, and even after he became old enough to understand the stairs were dangerous, she kept the habit of shutting it.
Yet now it stood open about six inches.
Darkness filled the gap.
The sound came again.
“Please…”
From downstairs.
I unlocked the back door.
Jesse grabbed my arm.
“Sir.”
I looked at him.
“Wait for the police.”
I should have.
I know that now.
But being a father does something strange to fear.
Sometimes fear tells you to run.
Sometimes it tells you the person you love might be on the other side of a door.
And suddenly running becomes impossible.
“If that’s my grandson down there, I’m not waiting.”
Jesse swallowed.
Then he picked up a landscaping shovel leaning against the fence.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re not going alone.”
“You stay here.”
“With respect, sir, absolutely not.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, I nodded.
We entered the kitchen.
The house smelled normal at first.
Coffee.
Lemon cleaner.
The faint lavender scent Clara used everywhere.
Then I noticed another smell.
Something metallic.
Something I recognized but did not want to name.
I walked toward the basement.
“Clara?”
Nothing.
“Liam?”
Another thump came from below.
Jesse tightened his grip on the shovel.
I reached the basement door.
That was when I saw the scratch marks.
Fresh marks surrounded the lock.
Someone had forced it.
My stomach dropped.
“Those weren’t there this morning,” I whispered.
“You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
I pushed the door open.
The basement stairs disappeared into darkness.
I reached for the light switch.
Nothing happened.
I flipped it again.
Still nothing.
“The bulb?”
Jesse asked.
“Maybe.”
But I knew Clara had replaced the basement lights less than a month earlier.
I turned on my phone flashlight.
The beam illuminated the first few steps.
“Stay behind me.”
We started down.
Each wooden step creaked beneath our weight.
Halfway down, I noticed something on the wall.
A smear.
Dark red.
I stopped breathing.
Jesse saw it too.
“Oh, God.”
“Don’t touch anything.”
We continued.
At the bottom of the stairs, the basement opened into a large room Clara mostly used for storage.
Boxes lined one wall.
Christmas decorations filled another.
An old sofa sat beneath the small basement window.
Nothing moved.
Then came another weak cry.
“Here…”
It came from behind the storage shelves.
I rushed around them.
And froze.
A woman was lying on the concrete floor.
Her wrists were bound behind her back with gray duct tape.
Another strip of tape had been pulled halfway from her mouth.
Blood covered one side of her forehead.
Her eyes fluttered open when my flashlight crossed her face.
For one horrible second, I thought it was Clara.
Then the woman whispered, “Please…”
I dropped beside her.
“You’re okay. Help is coming.”
She shook her head frantically.
“No.”
“What?”
“You have to leave.”
Jesse crouched beside me.
“Who did this to you?”
The woman looked toward the staircase.
Pure terror filled her eyes.
“He might still be here.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
Jesse stood immediately and raised the shovel.
I turned my flashlight toward the stairs.
Nothing.
“Who?” I whispered.
The woman struggled to breathe.
“The man who brought me here.”
“Who brought you here?”
She looked directly at me.
“Evan.”
My stomach turned.
“Evan?”
She nodded.
My daughter’s ex-husband.
I stared at her.
“Why would Evan bring you to Clara’s house?”
The woman began crying.
“I don’t know.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Rachel.”
“How do you know Evan?”
She closed her eyes.
“I work at his attorney’s office.”
That answer raised more questions than it answered.
Jesse looked toward the stairs again.
“Police should be here any second.”
As if on cue, distant sirens became audible outside.
Rachel heard them.
Instead of looking relieved, she panicked.
“No!”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Those are the police.”
“You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?”
“He told me if the police came…”
She stopped.
“If the police came, what?”
Rachel stared toward a stack of boxes near the far wall.
“There’s something in this house.”
My skin prickled.
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Then how do you know it’s here?”
“Because that’s why he brought me.”
Jesse and I exchanged a look.
Rachel’s breathing became faster.
“He kept asking where Clara put it.”
“Put what?”
“A folder.”
“What folder?”
“I don’t know.”
“You work at Evan’s attorney’s office and you don’t know?”
“I only saw it once.”
She swallowed hard.
“It had Clara’s name on it.”
My heart began pounding again.
“What was inside?”
“I never read everything.”
“What did you read?”
Rachel hesitated.
“Bank statements.”
I frowned.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Rachel.”
“And photographs.”
“What kind of photographs?”
She looked at me.
“Pictures of Clara.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
“What pictures?”
“Her leaving work. Picking up Liam. Grocery shopping. Going to your house.”
My blood turned cold.
Someone had been following my daughter.
The truck.
The one I had seen leaving the neighborhood that morning.
“Was Evan taking those pictures?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then who was?”
Rachel shook her head.
“I swear I don’t know.”
Footsteps suddenly sounded upstairs.
Jesse raised the shovel.
“Police!” a voice shouted.
I exhaled for what felt like the first time in minutes.
“Down here!” I called.
Two officers appeared at the top of the basement stairs.
“Show me your hands!”
I immediately raised mine.
Jesse dropped the shovel.
“There’s an injured woman down here!”
Within seconds, the basement filled with police officers and paramedics.
They cut Rachel free and placed her on a stretcher.
One officer pulled me aside.
“Sir, is this your residence?”
“My daughter’s.”
“Where is she?”
“Out of town.”
“Are you certain?”
The question irritated me.
“She called me from the airport this morning.”
“Where was she going?”
“Denver. Business conference.”
The officer wrote something down.
“Do you know the injured woman?”
“Never seen her before.”
“And she claims your daughter’s former husband brought her here?”
“Yes.”
The officer looked toward his partner.
Something passed between them.
“What?”
Neither answered.
“What is it?”
The officer finally looked at me.
“We already have units trying to locate Mr. Evan Mercer.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
“Because his vehicle was found abandoned about twenty minutes ago.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“Approximately three miles from here.”
“Was he inside?”
“No.”
“What about Liam?”
The officer stopped writing.
“Who is Liam?”
“My grandson. Evan and Clara’s son. He’s supposed to be with Evan.”
The officer’s expression changed instantly.
“How old?”
“Seven.”
He turned toward another officer.
“Get an alert started for the child.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Wait. You’re saying you don’t know where Liam is?”
“We’re going to find out.”
I pulled out my phone again.
Still nothing from Clara.
I called her.
Voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I whispered. “Answer.”
Nothing.
A paramedic passed carrying Rachel toward the stairs.
As she reached me, she suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Mr. Whitmore.”
I stared at her.
I had never told her my name.
“How do you know who I am?”
Rachel’s face went white.
The paramedic tried to move her along.
She resisted.
“Because your daughter talked about you.”
“When?”
Rachel looked at the police officer standing beside me.
Then back at me.
“Three days ago.”
My heart stopped.
“You spoke to Clara three days ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She came to the office.”
“For what?”
Rachel lowered her voice.
“She was scared.”
“Of Evan?”
Rachel shook her head.
“No.”
That answer frightened me more than if she had said yes.
“Then who?”
Rachel looked around the basement.
“She found something.”
“The folder?”
“Yes.”
“What was in it?”
“I told you. Financial records, photographs…”
“And?”
Her lips trembled.
“And a copy of Liam’s birth certificate.”
I stared at her.
“Why would that matter?”
Rachel squeezed my wrist harder.
“Because it wasn’t the same birth certificate Clara had.”
The sirens outside seemed to disappear.
The voices around me became distant.
“What are you talking about?”
Rachel whispered, “The father’s name was different.”
I felt the floor shift beneath me.
“Different how?”
“Evan’s name wasn’t on it.”
I stared at her.
“Then whose name was?”
Before she could answer, an officer upstairs shouted.
“Detective!”
Everyone turned.
A detective came quickly down the stairs holding a small plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a cell phone.
Clara’s cell phone.
I recognized the pale blue case immediately.
My stomach dropped.
“Where did you find that?”
The detective looked at me.
“Upstairs.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Clara took that phone with her.”
The detective’s expression hardened.
“Mr. Whitmore, we need to verify something.”
“What?”
“Did you actually see your daughter leave for the airport this morning?”
“No. She called me.”
“And you heard airport noises?”
“Yes.”
He stared at Clara’s phone inside the evidence bag.
Then he said something I will never forget.
“Those sounds can be recorded.”
I could barely breathe.
“No.”
The detective continued.
“We checked the flight manifest.”
My hands started shaking.
“What about it?”
“There is no passenger named Clara Whitmore on the flight to Denver.”
The room went silent.
My daughter had never boarded the plane.
She might never even have gone to the airport.
“Then where is she?”
Before anyone could answer, a police officer shouted from the far side of the basement.
“Detective, you need to see this.”
He was standing beside a tall wooden storage cabinet.
The cabinet had been moved away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow door.
I stared at it.
I had helped Clara move into this house four years earlier.
I had painted this basement.
Installed those shelves.
Replaced the water heater.
I knew every corner of this place.
Or I thought I did.
Because I had never seen that door before.
The detective approached it.
“Mr. Whitmore, stay back.”
He pulled on gloves.
The door was locked.
One officer brought down a pry bar.
The first strike cracked the frame.
The second broke the lock.
The door slowly opened.
A cold draft moved through the basement.
Behind it was a narrow concrete passage.
Someone shined a flashlight inside.
There were footprints in the dust.
Fresh footprints.
One set went in.
Another came out.
And sitting just beyond the doorway was a child’s red backpack.
My knees nearly collapsed.
I knew that backpack.
I had bought it myself for Liam’s seventh birthday.
I pushed toward the doorway.
“That’s my grandson’s!”
Two officers held me back.
“Sir, stay here.”
“Liam!”
No answer.
“LIAM!”
Then, somewhere deep inside that dark passage, something moved.
Everyone froze.
An officer raised his flashlight.
“Police! Identify yourself!”
Silence.
Then we heard it.
Not crying this time.
Not footsteps.
A child’s voice.
Barely more than a whisper.
“Grandpa?”
My heart shattered.
“Liam!”
I tried to rush forward.
The officers stopped me again.
“Grandpa,” Liam whispered from somewhere in the darkness.
“I’m here!” I shouted. “I’m right here!”
Then my grandson said six words that made every officer in that basement go completely still.
“Grandpa… Mom told me to hide.”
I stared into the darkness.
“Hide from who, buddy?”
For several seconds, Liam said nothing.
Then his frightened voice came through the passage again.
“From the man in your house.”
My blood went cold.
“My house?”
“Yes.”
I slowly reached for my phone.
And at that exact moment, my security camera app sent me a notification.
MOTION DETECTED — FRONT DOOR.
With shaking fingers, I opened the live camera.
A man stood on my porch.
He wasn’t Evan.
I had never seen him before.
But he was holding something that belonged to Clara.
Her purse.
Then the man slowly lifted his face toward my security camera.
He smiled.
And my phone began to ring.
CALLER: CLARA
TO BE CONTINUED…
