Chapter 14 - The Fifth Knock
I woke beneath a beam.
Dust filled my mouth.
Someone was screaming my name.
“Hannah!”
Anna.
I pushed myself up.
The farmhouse was half gone.
The kitchen ceiling had collapsed.
The fire was spreading.
“Grandpa!”
No answer.
I crawled toward the basement entrance.
Mason grabbed me.
“It's collapsing.”
“I don't care.”
“He's under there.”
Then I heard it.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Everyone froze.
Three knocks.
From beneath the rubble.
Grandpa.
I started digging.
Anna helped.
Mason joined us.
Robert stood nearby, blood running down his arm.
“Move!” he shouted.
We pulled away broken boards.
Another knock.
Three more.
Then a fourth.
I looked at Robert.
“What does four mean?”
He shook his head.
“Run.”
The floor cracked.
We jumped back.
The basement collapsed.
A wall of dirt fell inward.
Then a hand appeared.
Grandpa.
Alive.
We pulled him free.
He was burned.
Bleeding.
But conscious.
He grabbed my wrist.
“The fifth.”
“What?”
“The fifth knock.”
I didn't understand.
He pointed toward the barn.
“Go.”
“Why?”
“The fifth means too late.”
Mason looked toward the river.
Smoke was rising.
The contaminated reservoir had breached.
Water was rushing toward the old river gate.
Anna suddenly understood.
“Elias opened the final gate.”
“If the water reaches the river…”
“The evidence is gone.”
And thousands of people downstream could be exposed.
We ran.
The old floodgate was already shaking.
Water exploded through the concrete channel.
There was a control panel.
Dead.
Grandpa pointed.
“Manual lever.”
I found it.
Pulled.
Nothing.
Robert joined me.
Together we pulled.
The mechanism groaned.
Then moved.
Water level dropped.
The river gate began closing.
A loud siren echoed.
Far across the property, emergency vehicles appeared.
The sheriff.
State environmental agents.
Fire crews.
News vans.
Mason looked at me.
“You sent the files.”
I stared.
“What?”
He held up my phone.
The hard drive had automatically uploaded through the farmhouse router before the explosion.
Every document.
Every photograph.
Every name.
Everything.
Grandpa smiled.
“You always were better with machines than I was.”
I laughed through tears.
Then headlights appeared on the road.
A woman stepped out.
Gray hair.
Green coat.
She stood perfectly still.
Sarah.
My mother.
I couldn't move.
Anna ran first.
Sarah caught her.
Then looked at me.
Our eyes met.
Twenty-four years of silence collapsed between us.
She walked slowly toward me.
“I wanted to come sooner.”
I shook my head.
“I don't know what to say.”
“You don't have to say anything.”
She touched my cheek.
“I remember holding you the night you were born.”
I cried.
“So do I,” she whispered.
“No.”
She smiled through tears.
“You were asleep.”
Behind us, sirens grew louder.
Elias was arrested.
Robert was taken into custody for questioning.
The evidence was secured.
The farm was surrounded.
For the first time in my life, there was nowhere left for my family to hide.
Then Grandpa pulled me close.
“Hannah.”
“What?”
He whispered:
“There is still one thing in this house nobody knows about.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
He looked toward the burned farmhouse.
“The first three knocks were never meant to keep people out.”
“What were they for?”
He smiled.
“To tell me who had come home.”
Then, from inside the ruins of the farmhouse, we heard it.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I looked at Grandpa.
His expression changed.
“That wasn't me.”
A second set followed.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Anna stepped closer.
Sarah went pale.
Mason drew his weapon.
Five seconds later, someone emerged from beneath the collapsed basement.
A man.
Older.
Weak.
Covered in dirt.
He looked at Grandpa.
Then at me.
“I've been waiting twenty-seven years to tell you what really happened.”
Grandpa stared at him.
“Thomas.”
The man smiled.
May you like
And then he said,
“I was the one who killed Sarah Mercer.”
