Chapter 3 - Darkness swallowed the house.Lily screamed.
I pulled her against me.
“Stay with me.”
Somewhere upstairs, a door slammed.
Then another.
Marcus whispered,
“Ethan...”
“Quiet.”
We listened.
Footsteps.
Above us.
Slow.
One.
Two.
Three.
Someone was walking across the second floor.
Claire's breathing became ragged.
“You said no one was here,” I whispered.
“I thought they left.”
“Who?”
She didn't answer.
The footsteps stopped.
Then came the sound of something heavy being dragged.
I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight.
Marcus pulled a fire extinguisher from the wall.
“Stay here,” I told Lily.
She shook her head violently.
“Don't leave me.”
“I won't.”
We moved toward the staircase.
Claire stayed behind us.
Halfway up, the smell of smoke reached me.
I looked toward the hallway.
A thin gray line drifted beneath the door to my office.
“Get back!”
I kicked the door open.
Smoke rolled out.
A trash can was burning beside the desk.
Someone had set papers on fire.
I rushed inside.
My laptop was gone.
So were the documents from the locked cabinet.
“What was in there?” Marcus asked.
“Financial records.”
Claire said nothing.
I turned toward her.
“You knew.”
She looked away.
The fire alarm finally activated.
I grabbed the extinguisher.
Within seconds, the flames were out.
Then I noticed the window.
It was open.
Curtains moved in the cold air.
Someone had escaped through it.
I ran outside.
Nothing.
Just darkness.
Then I spotted footprints in the wet grass.
A single set.
Leading toward the road.
And beside them...
a child's red sock.
I picked it up.
Lily stared at it.
“That was Tommy's.”
I turned to Claire.
“Why would someone have Tommy's sock?”
She didn't answer.
Back inside, I found Marcus staring at the office floor.
“What?”
He pointed.
A small black device was taped beneath my desk.
Camera.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
I tore it off.
The lens was warm.
Someone had been watching us in real time.
I looked at Claire.
“How long?”
She swallowed.
“I don't know.”
“Try again.”
“I don't know.”
Marcus walked toward her.
“Claire, tell him.”
She flinched.
“Tell me what?”
Marcus's face hardened.
“This started six months ago.”
I stared at him.
“What started?”
“Someone began contacting her.”
“Who?”
“He said he knew about you.”
I felt my stomach tighten.
“What about me?”
Marcus looked at the hidden camera.
“He claimed Ethan wasn't the man you thought he was.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That's convenient.”
Claire finally spoke.
“He knew about the money.”
“What money?”
“The money missing from the company.”
My heart stopped.
The missing money.
Eight hundred thousand dollars had disappeared from one of the company accounts over the previous year.
I had suspected an internal theft.
But I had never found proof.
“You stole it?”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Your father.”
Silence.
My father had been dead for four years.
“That’s impossible.”
“He didn't steal it before he died.”
Claire's voice dropped.
“He moved it.”
“Where?”
She looked at me.
“Into your name.”
I stared at her.
Marcus stepped back.
“Ethan, listen to me.”
“No.”
I couldn't process it.
My dead father.
A missing fortune.
My wife's secret.
My brother's involvement.
And now hidden cameras.
I walked toward Claire.
“You're going to explain everything.”
She nodded.
“But not here.”
“Why?”
“Because they know we're talking.”
“Who are they?”
She whispered,
“The people who killed your father.”
The room went silent.
My father's death had always been ruled an accident.
A heart attack while driving.
I had buried him myself.
Claire took one step closer.
“I didn't know at first.”
“Know what?”
“That your father had left something behind.”
She reached into her handbag.
Pulled out a key.
Small.
Brass.
Old.
“What's that?”
“The key to the second room.”
My pulse jumped.
“Where?”
She looked at the wall behind the bookshelf.
I moved the furniture.
Behind it was a narrow outline.
A hidden door.
No handle.
Only a keyhole.
I inserted the key.
The lock clicked.
The door opened inward.
A staircase descended into darkness.
Marcus stared down.
“What the hell?”
Claire whispered,
“Your father built it before he died.”
I turned on my flashlight.
At the bottom was a concrete corridor.
And on the wall...
photographs.
Dozens of them.
My childhood.
My wedding.
Lily's birth.
Tommy's birth.
Every important moment of my life.
Someone had been watching me for years.
Then I saw the newest photograph.
Taken three days earlier.
It showed Lily sitting outside the locked storage room.
Holding Tommy.
And behind her stood Claire.
But Claire wasn't alone.
A man stood beside her.
His face had been scratched away.
May you like
On the back of the photograph, someone had written:
YOU WERE NEVER SUPPOSED TO COME HOME.
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