CHAPTER 4: THE VOICE BEHIND THE WALL
"Daddy..."
The tiny voice was so faint Arthur almost believed he had imagined it.
The room froze.
Every security officer instinctively stopped moving.
Marcus lifted one hand.
"No one speak."
Silence swallowed the nursery.
Then it came again.
"Daddy..."
This time there was no doubt.
Emily.
Alive.
Arthur's heart pounded.
"Emily!"
No answer.
He turned slowly, trying to locate the direction of the sound.
The voice hadn't come from the hallway.
Nor from the window.
It had come from...
Inside the room.
Marcus frowned.
"Sir..."
Arthur walked to the center of the nursery.
He listened.
Nothing.
Then...
A soft knocking.
Three taps.
Pause.
Three taps again.
Arthur's eyes snapped toward the fireplace.
The sound had come from behind it.
Two officers rushed over and pulled the heavy oak bookshelf away from the wall.
Nothing.
Marcus examined the fireplace.
"It hasn't been used in years."
Arthur knelt beside it.
His fingers brushed across the carved stone mantel.
Dust covered almost everything.
Almost.
One section was strangely clean.
As if someone had touched it recently.
He pressed against the carving.
Nothing happened.
He tried another.
Still nothing.
Then he noticed a small brass rose hidden among the stone decorations.
It looked different from the others.
Worn.
Polished.
Arthur twisted it.
A deep metallic click echoed through the room.
The fireplace rumbled.
Stone scraped against stone.
Slowly, impossibly, the entire fireplace slid sideways.
Behind it...
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
Cold air drifted upward.
Victoria gasped.
"I... I never knew..."
Arthur turned toward her.
"You've never been here?"
"No!"
Marcus signaled two officers.
"Lights."
Flashlights pierced the darkness below.
The passage was old.
Brick walls.
Low ceiling.
Barely wide enough for one person.
Arthur stepped forward.
Marcus caught his arm.
"Sir."
"It could be a trap."
Arthur looked him in the eye.
"My daughter is down there."
He entered without another word.
The tunnel stretched farther than anyone expected.
Old electrical wires hung from the ceiling.
Water dripped steadily somewhere ahead.
The air smelled damp.
Forgotten.
Like a place untouched for decades.
Then Arthur saw something on the ground.
A pink ribbon.
Emily's.
He picked it up carefully.
Fresh.
It hadn't been there long.
"She's ahead."
The team moved faster.
Every corner tightened the knot in Arthur's chest.
Finally...
The tunnel opened into a small underground room.
Empty.
No Emily.
Only an old wooden table.
A lantern.
And another envelope.
Arthur tore it open.
Inside was a single photograph.
His hands froze.
The picture had been taken ten years earlier.
It showed Arthur...
His first wife, Claire...
And newborn Emily.
All three were smiling.
Someone had drawn a thick red X over Claire's face.
Across the bottom, in black ink, were six words:
"She should have died alone."
Marcus stared at the photograph.
"Who would do this?"
Arthur didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because only a handful of people possessed that family photo.
And every copy had been locked away after Claire's funeral.
Someone inside the Carter family had accessed them.
Suddenly, one of the officers called out.
"Sir!"
Everyone turned.
Near the far wall...
Tiny footprints.
Still wet.
They ended abruptly.
Marcus frowned.
"They don't continue."
Arthur examined the floor.
Solid concrete.
No doors.
No windows.
No exits.
Emily couldn't simply disappear.
He crouched lower.
One footprint looked deeper than the others.
As if the floor beneath it had shifted.
Arthur pressed his hand against the concrete.
A hollow sound answered.
Marcus immediately understood.
"There's another chamber."
The officers searched the wall until one found a rusted iron ring embedded in the floor.
Together, they pulled.
With a groan, a hidden trapdoor opened.
Darkness yawned below.
Then...
A sound.
Not crying.
Not footsteps.
Music.
A soft lullaby echoed upward.
Arthur stopped breathing.
He recognized it instantly.
Claire used to sing that lullaby to Emily every night.
No one else knew all the words.
No one.
Victoria whispered,
"How...?"
Arthur climbed down first.
The chamber beneath was larger.
Old furniture stood beneath dusty sheets.
Boxes lined the walls.
At the center sat an antique record player.
Its needle scratched across a worn vinyl record.
The lullaby filled the room.
But there was no child.
No kidnapper.
Only one final object.
A small digital voice recorder.
Its red light blinked.
Recording complete.
Arthur pressed Play.
Emily's frightened voice filled the chamber.
"Daddy..."
"I did what she said..."
"I'm sorry..."
"I didn't want you to get hurt..."
Then another voice spoke.
A woman.
Calm.
Soft.
Almost comforting.
"Good girl."
"Now tell your father the truth."
Emily sobbed.
"What truth?"
The woman answered:
"Tell him..."
"...that your mother didn't die by accident."
Arthur's entire body went rigid.
The recording ended.
No one in the room moved.
Marcus slowly looked at Arthur.
"Sir..."
Arthur stared into the darkness, his face drained of color.
Because twenty years ago, the official investigation had ruled Claire Carter's death an accident.
The case had been closed.
Buried.
Forgotten.
Until now.
Before anyone could speak, Arthur's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered immediately.
"This is Arthur Carter."
For several seconds, only static came through.
Then the caller laughed.
A quiet, chilling laugh.
Finally, a disguised voice whispered:
May you like
"You're finally asking the right questions."
The line went dead.
