I nodded.
Ryan remained at my house under supervision while we drove to Linda’s place.
I had visited that house many times.
That fact became more horrifying with every mile.
I had sat in Linda’s dining room drinking coffee.
I had stood in her kitchen while she wrapped leftovers in foil.
Once, two Christmases after Janet supposedly died, I had used the downstairs bathroom and heard a thump somewhere behind the wall.
Linda had laughed and blamed old pipes.
I had laughed too.
Now I remembered the sound differently.
Linda’s house looked ordinary when we arrived.
White siding.
Trimmed shrubs.
A ceramic planter near the front steps.
The kind of house nobody notices twice.
Ben went in first with the deputies.
Sam and I remained outside until he called us closer.
Linda stood in the hallway in a cardigan and house slippers, furious rather than frightened.
“This is ridiculous,” she snapped.
“You can’t just come tearing through my home because Evie misunderstood a private family matter.”
I stared at her.
“Where is my daughter?”
Linda’s face did something strange.
For an instant, the anger vanished.
Then it returned twice as hard.
“You need to calm down.”
“Where is Janet?”
“She was unstable.”
The past tense made my knees weak.
Ben heard it too.
“Was?”
Linda pressed her lips together.
A deputy called from the back of the house.
“Sheriff.”
We followed the voice to a narrow hallway beside the laundry room.
There was a door there I remembered seeing before.
Linda had always called it a utility closet.
It was locked.
Not with a normal interior lock.
With a heavy one mounted on the outside.
My heart began pounding so hard I could hear it.
Ben ordered Linda to provide the key.
She refused.
The deputy forced the door.
Behind it was a staircase.
Concrete steps descended into darkness.
The smell reached us first: damp air, bleach, stale fabric.
Then came a sound.
A scrape.
Three soft knocks.
I grabbed Sam’s sleeve.
“Janet?”
Ben turned immediately.
“Stay here.”
I did not want to obey.
I did anyway.
