Chapter 4 - The Fourth Knock
We searched the mill until midnight.
No shooter.
No Evelyn.
No blood trail.
Only the envelope.
Mason wanted to take it as evidence.
I refused.
“My name is on it.”
“That doesn't give you ownership.”
“I think it does.”
He sighed.
“You have the most inconvenient definition of ownership I've ever heard.”
Back at the farmhouse, I put the envelope on Grandpa's kitchen table.
Then I waited.
Nothing.
One hour.
Two.
At 1:47 a.m., the old grandfather clock stopped.
At 2:13, I heard it.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I stared at the door.
Then came another.
Knock.
Silence.
Knock.
I remembered the warning.
DON'T ANSWER AFTER THE THIRD KNOCK.
But this was different.
This was four.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
A young woman stood beside a pickup truck.
Beside her was my grandfather.
She was maybe eighteen.
I didn't recognize her.
On the back, one sentence:
HER NAME WAS SARAH MERCER.
Evelyn.
Her daughter.
I found a second photograph.
It showed Sarah holding a newborn baby.
The baby's face had been scratched out.
Another note.
ROBERT WAS THERE THE NIGHT SHE DISAPPEARED.
My hands began to shake.
Mason was asleep on the couch.
I woke him.
He studied the photographs.
“Do you know this woman?”
“No.”
“She was my mother.”
The voice came from behind us.
We turned.
Evelyn stood in the kitchen doorway.
Alive.
Bleeding from her shoulder.
Mason raised his weapon.
“Put that down.”
“She shot me,” Evelyn said.
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
I stared at her.
“Robert shot you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn't want you to know what happened in 1999.”
She walked to the table.
Her fingers touched the photograph.
“Sarah was my daughter.”
I looked at the baby.
“Who was the father?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Henry.”
Silence.
Mason stopped breathing for a second.
I laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brain couldn't process it.
“My grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“That's impossible.”
“No.”
Evelyn looked directly into my eyes.
“Sarah was seventeen when she met Henry's son.”
I frowned.
“Henry's son?”
“Not Robert.”
I felt something cold spread through me.
“You mean…”
“Your mother.”
The room tilted.
“My mother?”
Evelyn nodded.
“Sarah was your mother's older sister.”
I sat down.
My grandfather had another daughter.
A daughter nobody had ever mentioned.
A woman who had disappeared twenty-seven years ago.
A woman named Sarah Mercer.
“Why did my family hide her?”
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
“Because she saw something she shouldn't have seen.”
“What?”
Evelyn looked toward the windows.
“Redwood was dumping chemicals into the old limestone shafts beneath the western pasture.”
Mason frowned.
“For how long?”
“Years.”
“And Sarah discovered it?”
“She saw men moving barrels underground.”
“What happened to her?”
Evelyn didn't answer.
I stood.
“What happened to Sarah?”
“Robert followed her.”
My blood turned cold.
“He caught her near the river.”
“What did he do?”
Evelyn whispered,
“He told Henry that Sarah had died in the flood.”
“But you said—”
“She survived.”
I stared at her.
“Then where is she?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“That is what your grandfather spent twenty-seven years trying to prove.”
Mason stepped closer.
“What about Henry?”
Evelyn lowered her head.
“Six months ago, Henry finally found Sarah.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
She looked toward the barn.
“Beneath your farm.”
The kitchen lights flickered.
The fourth knock came again.
This time from the basement.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Evelyn whispered,
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because the basement was sealed thirty years ago.”
We all stared at the floor.
Then something knocked from underneath it.
Again.
Four times.
And a man's voice rose through the boards.
“Hannah.”
May you like
I knew that voice.
My grandfather.
