Chapter 3 - The police arrived twenty-three minutes later.By then, the party was gone.
Guests had left through the front gate.
The backyard was filled with flashing lights.
Emma sat wrapped in a blanket.
Calla sat beside her.
Daniel stood near the pool house while two officers examined the broken door.
Drea remained inside.
She had stopped crying.
Now she was silent.
Too silent.
One detective, Nora Hayes, entered the living room and began asking questions.
“Emma, can you tell me who kept you there?”
Emma's fingers tightened around the blanket.
“I don't know her name.”
Detective Hayes glanced at Daniel.
“Her?”
Emma nodded.
“She came at night.”
“How often?”
“Not regularly.”
“Can you describe her?”
Emma closed her eyes.
“She wore gloves.”
“Anything else?”
“A silver ring.”
“What kind?”
Emma looked at Calla.
“Black stone.”
Daniel's head snapped toward Drea.
Drea wasn't wearing a ring.
Detective Hayes noticed the movement.
“Something you know?”
Daniel hesitated.
“No.”
Emma looked toward him.
“Yes, you do.”
Daniel stared.
“I don't.”
Emma's voice cracked.
“Your mother had one.”
Drea stepped forward.
“That's enough.”
Daniel turned toward her.
“My mother died three years ago.”
Drea nodded slowly.
“I know.”
“Then how would Emma know her ring?”
Drea's face went blank.
Emma whispered:
“Because she gave it to me.”
Detective Hayes immediately asked:
“Your mother?”
Emma nodded.
“No.”
She looked at Drea.
“Drea's mother.”
Silence.
Drea laughed nervously.
“My mother has been dead for five years.”
Emma shook her head.
“She wasn't the woman.”
Drea's smile vanished.
“She was the woman who came into the pool house.”
Detective Hayes wrote something down.
“Are you saying Drea's mother imprisoned you?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Emma looked at Drea again.
“She hired someone.”
Daniel stared at his wife.
Drea's voice rose.
“She is traumatized. She has been isolated. She doesn't know what she's saying.”
Emma stood suddenly.
“I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I'M SAYING.”
Her voice echoed through the room.
Calla grabbed her hand.
Emma immediately softened.
“Sorry.”
Detective Hayes looked at Daniel.
“Where was the pool house key kept?”
Daniel frowned.
“I don't know.”
Drea answered:
“In the kitchen drawer.”
Everyone looked at her.
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
“You said the pool house hasn't been used in years.”
“It hasn't.”
“Then why do you know exactly where the key is?”
Drea opened her mouth.
No answer came.
Detective Hayes walked to the kitchen.
She opened the drawer.
Inside were dozens of keys.
She searched.
Then stopped.
A single key had a label attached.
POOL HOUSE
Daniel stared at it.
The label was new.
Detective Hayes looked at Drea.
“When was this made?”
“I don't know.”
She was lying.
Daniel knew it.
Perhaps the detective did too.
Then Emma whispered:
“Check the wall.”
Everyone turned.
“What wall?” Daniel asked.
“The one behind the cabinets.”
She looked toward the old kitchen extension.
“There's another room.”
Drea's face changed.
“What?”
Emma stepped backward.
“I heard voices through the wall.”
Daniel removed a cabinet.
Behind it was an old wooden panel.
Detective Hayes pried it open.
A narrow cavity appeared.
Inside was a metal box.
Daniel pulled it out.
It contained dozens of envelopes.
Photographs.
Receipts.
Hospital records.
And one small cassette tape.
Calla picked up a photograph.
It showed Emma entering the house six years earlier.
She was pregnant.
Daniel stared.
“You were pregnant?”
Emma nodded.
“I never got to tell you.”
Calla looked confused.
“What does that mean?”
Emma crouched beside her.
“Calla, there is something I need to tell you.”
Before she could continue, Daniel's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then a woman's voice whispered:
“Your daughter has been asking the wrong questions.”
Daniel's blood ran cold.
“Who is this?”
The voice continued.
“Ask Emma what happened to the baby.”
The call ended.
Daniel slowly lowered the phone.
Calla stared at him.
“What baby?”
Emma closed her eyes.
May you like
And Drea whispered:
“Because there was never supposed to be another child.”
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