Chapter 1 - The Door Beneath the House)
Four hours earlier, Ethan had believed his biggest problem was missing dinner.
He had been driving home through a hard October rain, thinking about the argument he had left unfinished with Emily that morning.
It had not been a serious argument.
At least, that was what he had told himself.
Emily wanted the locks changed.
Ethan thought she was overreacting.
Again.
For almost three weeks, she had been insisting that someone had entered their home while they slept.
A kitchen drawer left open.
A basement door unlocked.
A framed photograph moved from the hallway to the living room.
Once, she had found a wet footprint near the back entrance even though neither of them had gone outside.
Ethan had listened.
But every explanation he offered seemed reasonable.
Pregnancy exhaustion.
A contractor.
A cleaning woman.
His father dropping something off.
The last possibility had made Emily unusually quiet.
"Your father shouldn't have a key."
"He helped me buy the house."
"That doesn't mean he should be able to walk in whenever he wants."
"He doesn't."
Emily had looked at him.
"You don't know that."
He regretted the way he had sighed.
He regretted saying, "We can't turn every little thing into a conspiracy."
Most of all, he regretted leaving before she could answer.
At 4:47 that afternoon, Emily sent him a message.
Can you come home early?
At 4:53, another arrived.
Your dad is here.
At 4:56:
Ethan please answer.
He had been in a meeting.
His phone had been on silent.
When Ethan finally checked it at 5:18, there were no more messages.
He called Emily.
Nothing.
He called again.
Straight to voicemail.
Then he called Robert.
His father answered immediately.
"Everything's fine."
Ethan had not even asked a question.
That was the moment fear began.
"What are you doing at my house?"
"Helping Diane with something."
"Where's Emily?"
"Resting."
"Put her on."
A pause.
"She's emotional today."
Ethan gripped the steering wheel.
"Put my wife on the phone."
Robert disconnected.
Twenty-three minutes later Ethan was running through his own front door.
The house was silent.
Robert's SUV stood outside.
Diane's coat was hanging near the entry.
Yet nobody answered when he shouted.
Then he heard the knock from beneath the floor.
The basement.
The basement door was locked from the outside.
Ethan kicked it open.
Now, minutes after seeing the envelope in Robert's hand, the situation became even stranger.
The sound from the kitchen above them had been clear.
A door shutting.
Everyone looked toward the staircase.
Robert's face lost color.
Diane whispered, "Who else is here?"
Ethan did not answer.
He turned to Emily.
"Can you move your toes?"
Emily tried.
Nothing happened.
Panic filled her eyes.
"The baby?"
"I don't know."
Ethan slid one arm behind her back.
Robert moved.
"Don't take her upstairs."
Ethan looked at him.
The words were so irrational that for a moment he assumed he had misunderstood.
"What?"
Robert blocked the staircase.
"She stays here until we deal with this."
Ethan stared.
"Deal with what?"
Robert lifted the envelope.
"With the truth."
Emily closed her eyes.
Diane looked from the envelope to the stairs.
"We need to find whoever is upstairs first."
That was when a woman's voice called from the kitchen.
"Ethan?"
Every person in the basement froze.
Ethan knew that voice.
He had heard it hundreds of times as a child.
Soft.
Careful.
Slightly breathless.
Impossible.
His mother had died seventeen years ago.
"Ethan," the voice repeated. "Please come upstairs."
Robert staggered backward.
"No."
The envelope slipped from his fingers.
Ethan caught it before it hit the floor.
His mother's handwriting stared back at him.
Emily whispered his name.
He looked down at her.
"Who is upstairs?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Emily."
"I was going to tell you."
"Tell me what?"
Before she answered, footsteps appeared at the top of the basement stairs.
A woman stepped into view.
She was about fifty-five, thin, with gray streaks through dark hair.
Ethan had never seen her before.
But around her neck hung a silver pendant shaped like a small bird.
His mother had owned the same pendant.
The woman looked past Ethan toward Robert.
"You told him I was dead too, didn't you?"
Ethan slowly turned toward his father.
Robert was no longer angry.
He was terrified.
The woman descended one step.
"My name is Laura Bennett."
Ethan's mother had been named Laura Carter.
Ethan laughed once.
It was not amusement.
It was shock.
"My mother is dead."
Laura looked directly into his eyes.
"That's what your father paid everyone to tell you."
Robert suddenly charged toward the stairs.
Ethan stepped into his path.
"Don't."
Robert stopped.
Laura looked down at the injured pregnant woman.
"We need an ambulance."
"Phones are broken," Ethan said.
"Mine isn't."
She raised a cell phone.
Diane rushed toward her.
Laura immediately backed up.
"Stay away from me."
Diane's face twisted.
"You should have stayed gone."
The words struck Ethan harder than anything else.
Stayed gone.
Not stayed dead.
Gone.
Ethan looked at his father.
Then at Diane.
Then at Laura.
Seventeen years of grief suddenly became something else.
Not loss.
A lie.
Laura dialed emergency services.
While she spoke, Ethan knelt beside Emily again.
He wanted answers.
But Emily needed him first.
He held her hand.
"You knew?"
Her fingers tightened around his.
"Not everything."
"How long?"
"Six weeks."
Six weeks.
Emily had known his mother might be alive for six weeks.
He pulled his hand back.
Her expression broke.
"I was trying to protect you."
"From what?"
Emily looked toward Robert.
"From the reason she disappeared."
Sirens began somewhere in the distance.
Robert stared at Emily.
And Ethan understood something that frightened him more than the basement.
May you like
His father was not scared that Laura had returned.
He was scared of what Emily had discovered.
