I moved on to the next one. A woman was sitting on the bed with a blanket over her shoulders. Her hair was longer than Janet’s usually was. Her face was pale.
Her body looked thin, too thin. Her eyes looked tired, lost, and scared. But I knew that face. A mother always knows. Janet, I breathed. The word came out broken.
I touched the screen as if I could touch her cheek through it. My vision blurred with tears. I blinked hard and looked again, terrified that the image might somehow change.
Nothing changed. It was her. My daughter was alive. Alive, not buried, not missing, alive and trapped somewhere in the darkness. Then a deep, terrible sound came from me.
The kind of sound a person makes when pain and hope collide so forcefully that the heart can’t contain them both. I leaned forward, clutching the phone to my chest.
I don’t know how long I stood there like that—a minute, five minutes, maybe longer. I only know that when I finally looked up, the kitchen was still shiny and ordinary, and I hated it for being ordinary.
The sunlight on the floor looked bad. The clean dishes looked bad. Even the peaches Rayan had brought were still in their paper bag on my countertop like some cruel little joke.
He had walked into my house smiling, knowing my daughter was alive. He had been right where I was now. He had looked at my face and lied to me. Suddenly, my sadness turned into something more burning.
Rage. No, it wasn’t rage. It was bigger than rage. It was the kind of fury that awakens when someone hurts your daughter and smiles while doing it.
I sat up straight and dried my face. Think. I whispered to myself. Think. If I called the police right away and they moved too slowly, Rayan Onda could hide somewhere else.
If I did nothing, Janet would remain trapped. Sian would go back for her phone and see that I had read the messages. Everything could explode before she got any help. She needed someone she could trust, someone firm, someone who would believe her.
I grabbed my own phone and called my younger brother, Sam. Sam Parker had been the stubborn one in the family since he was 10. He fixed cars, chopped wood, and never let anyone put nonsense in his head.
When Janet died, San was the only one who kept saying something didn’t add up. He said the story kept changing. He said Rayan answered questions too easily. He said Linda cried without shedding real tears.
At that time I told him that the pain was making him distrustful. Now he knew that the pain had blinded me, he answered on the second ring. Evie. My voice came out weak.
Sam, that’s all I said. Her tone changed instantly. “What happened? I need you to come right now,” I whispered. “Please,” she didn’t ask why. She didn’t waste any time.
I’m on my way. After hanging up, I locked the front door. Then I unlocked it again because a locked door might look strange if Rayan came back. And then I hated myself for worrying about what looked strange when my daughter could be trapped underground somewhere.
I kept checking my phone while I waited. There were bank transfers to a man named Curtis Hal. There were reminders to pick up medication. There was a note saved in Rayan’s calendar for every Tuesday and Friday at 8:30 p.m.
She only said one word. My skin went cold below. Then I found a voicemail. I hesitated before pressing play. My thumb hovered over the screen.
Part of me already knew that once I heard what was there, I’d never be able to unhear it. Even so, I played it. Linda’s voice filled the kitchen. She’s asked for her mother again.
I told him Evely moved out and never came back. He cried for an hour. Ryan, you have to make sure she takes her pills tonight. I’m sick of these scenes. I turned it off so fast I almost dropped my phone.
Now my whole body was trembling. She had asked about me. My daughter had asked about me, and that woman, that cold, evil woman, had told her that I had moved away and never returned.
I stood up so abruptly that the chair fell backward. The impact made me jump, and for a wild second I thought Rayan was back, but it was just me, just my own fear.
I lifted my chair and leaned on the table, breathing heavily. There was another thread of messages. I opened it. This one was between Rayan and someone named Curtis. The basement door is stuck.
Fixed. She scratched me. Use a leash if necessary. No visible marks, Ryan said. My stomach churned so violently I had to run to the sink. I didn’t throw up, but I almost did.
I stood there, clinging to the counter, staring at my own pale reflection in the small window above the sink. I looked older than I had been that morning, not in years, but in pain.
Honestly, by the time Sam’s truck pulled up in front of me, my hands had gone numb. I ran to the front door and met him before he even made it onto the porch.
The moment she saw my face, all her color drained away. “Evie, what’s wrong?” I handed her Rayan’s phone. She frowned, read the first message, then the second.
His jaw tightened. He kept reading. He scrolled down further. Then he looked up at me, and I saw something close to horror in his eyes. “Where did you get this?” He left it here.
San looked again. This time more slowly. He listened to the voicemail. He studied the photo of Janet in bed. His large, rough hand trembled once. Then he whispered, “Good heavens, so the tears I’d been holding back finally came out?”
“It’s her, Sam. It’s my girl. It’s Janet.” He grabbed my shoulders and held me tight, as if he were afraid I’d break in two. “I know,” he said. For a second, neither of us spoke.
We just stood there on my porch, holding onto each other as the truth rose between us like a storm. Then Sam took a deep breath and looked out at the road.
“We called Ben.” Sheriff Ben Tarner had known our family for years. He had gone fishing with Sam when they were young. He wasn’t flashy or loud, nor was he one of those men who speak before they think.
In a small town, that kind of man can mean the difference between justice and disaster. Can we trust him? I asked. Sam nodded once. “If we can trust anyone, we can trust Ben,” he called from the porch as I stood beside him, gripping Rayan’s phone so tightly my fingers ached.
“Come,” he answered quickly. Sam spoke in a low, harsh voice I’d only heard a few times before. “Come, I need you right now at Elin’s.” No radio warning, no helpers yet, just you.
And Ben was silent. There was a pause. Then Ben said something I couldn’t hear. Sam replied, “Because if what I’m seeing is real, Janet Parker never died.” The silence on the other end seemed to stretch on forever.
Then Ben said he was coming. We went inside to wait. I made coffee because I needed to keep my hands busy. I poured three cups. Although none of us were in the mood for coffee. I kept looking out the front window every few seconds.
Leave a Comment