Chapter 4 - VOICES IN THE WALLS
The air inside the hidden compartment was thick with the stench of despair and neglect. Empty plastic water bottles and half-eaten protein bar wrappers littered the insulation. There was a small chemical camping toilet in the corner, covered with a towel, and a battery-powered lantern that had long since died.
Clara shrank back as Daniel approached, but when the beam of his light revealed his tear-streaked face, she collapsed forward into his arms.
She weighed almost nothing. Daniel could feel every bone of her spine through the ragged shirt. She smelled of damp concrete and unwashed grief.
“Daniel...” she wept against his shoulder, her voice scraping against her throat like sandpaper. “You really didn't know... She told me you helped her. She told me you were in on it...”
“No! Never, Clara! I swear on Lily’s life!” Daniel felt hot tears burning his eyes as he wrapped his coat around her shivering shoulders. “I thought you ran away. I thought you died. We searched the river for months!”
“She ambushed me in my apartment garage,” Clara whispered, her words rushed and trembling. “Stun gun... brought me here in a trunk. She kept me drugged for the first month. Then she built this... she said if I screamed while you were in the house, she’d kill Lily. She showed me photos of Lily sleeping in her bed... she said she had poison ready for Lily’s juice if I ever made a sound while you were home.”
A wave of pure, murderous rage washed over Daniel. That was why Lily had heard her today—Daniel had been at the grocery store, and Vanessa must have been slipping up, or Clara had reached a breaking point.
“She’s locked in the guest room,” Daniel said, his voice shaking with restrained fury. “The police are coming. I’m getting you out of these chains right now.”
Daniel examined the iron cuff around Clara’s ankle. It was secured to a high-tensile steel chain wrapped three times around an exposed support stud, locked with a heavy padlock.
He wedged the flat edge of his pry bar into the padlock’s shackle. Bracing his boots against the floor joist, he hauled back with every ounce of strength he possessed. The metal groaned. Daniel let out a guttural roar, throwing his back into the leverage.
*SNAP.*
The cheap brass tumbler of the lock sheared apart under the immense force. The chain dropped to the plywood with a heavy rattle.
“You’re free,” Daniel breathed, gently lifting Clara into his arms.
She was so weak her legs couldn't support her weight. He carried her out through the hidden passage, maneuvering carefully through the coats in the wardrobe, and gently laid her down on the master bed.
In the natural light of the afternoon, the horror of her condition was undeniable. Clara’s skin was paper-pale, her cheeks sunken, her wrists raw and scabbed from the metal cuffs. Yet beneath the grime and exhaustion, the resemblance to Sarah was staggering.
Downstairs, the front door rattled.
Daniel’s instincts flared. He reached under the bed, retrieving the compact semi-automatic pistol he had kicked away earlier. He racked the slide, chambering a round, and stepped out onto the landing.
“Daniel? Daniel, it’s Marcus!” a booming, familiar voice shouted from the foyer.
Daniel let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for a year. “Marcus! Up here! Bring paramedics now!”
Sheriff Marcus Reed, a broad-shouldered man in uniform with graying hair and sharp, intelligent eyes, came bounding up the stairs two at a time. Behind him was a young deputy with his hand resting on his holster.
When Marcus reached the doorway of the master bedroom and his eyes fell upon Clara Vance lying on the bed, the veteran officer stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw dropped.
“Sweet Mother of God...” Marcus whispered, taking off his Stetson. “Clara?”
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“It was Vanessa,” Daniel said, his voice flat and vibrating with adrenaline. “She’s been holding Clara behind the wardrobe. And Marcus... she admitted it. She killed Sarah.”
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