Chapter 6 - The Room Below
The statement changed the investigation.
Police returned to the Carter house with a search warrant.
They examined the basement first.
It contained a washing machine, old furniture, shelves of tools, and a locked storage room. The floor was concrete. No hidden chamber appeared on the original building plans.
Lily had described hearing her mother’s voice beneath the kitchen.
Sarah stood in the kitchen and studied the tiles.
Near the pantry, she noticed scratches along the floorboards.
A cabinet had been installed over what appeared to be an older doorway.
Officers removed it.
Behind the cabinet was a narrow flight of steps descending into a section of basement separated from the main room.
At the bottom, they found a small office.
No one was inside.
A desk held printed bank statements, forged letters, spare identification cards, and files containing personal information about several families Evelyn had worked for.
There were also photographs of Grace.
One showed her entering a women’s support center.
Another showed her meeting a lawyer.
Evelyn had been watching her.
On the wall was a map with three locations marked in red.
One was the Carter house.
The second was a motel near the state border.
The third was a remote property registered to a company controlled by Evelyn.
Sarah stared at the map.
“She planned all of this.”
Reed opened a metal filing cabinet.
Inside was a stack of letters addressed to Lily.
Each was written in Grace’s handwriting.
My dear Lily, the first one began. I am safe. I am trying every day to come home to you.
There were eleven letters.
None had been delivered.
The final letter was dated three weeks earlier.
Grace wrote that she was staying somewhere she could not identify because a woman had threatened her. She believed Grant had been manipulated, but she also wrote that he had made his own choices and she no longer trusted him.
She promised Lily that she had never stopped searching for a safe way to reach her.
Reed contacted the lawyer named in the letters.
The lawyer revealed that Grace was alive.
She had entered a protected shelter after escaping the house. She planned to seek emergency custody, but Evelyn found her location and sent threats containing photographs of Lily at school.
Terrified that any legal action would place Lily in greater danger, Grace moved between shelters while gathering evidence.
She had recently disappeared from the support program.
Sarah pointed to the remote property on the map.
“Evelyn knows Grace is our strongest witness.”
Police units were sent to the address.
They found the property empty.
A cup of coffee was still warm.
Evelyn had been there less than an hour earlier.
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On the kitchen table was a photograph of Sarah leaving the hospital with Lily.
Across Sarah’s face, Evelyn had drawn a red circle.
