Chapter 10 - Eleven Years BuriedNo one moved.
Even the officers stood silent.
Sarah slowly turned toward Eleanor.
“The bodies?”
Eleanor looked at Daniel with something close to hatred.
“You idiot.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You think I'm still protecting you?”
“You don't know what you're saying.”
“I know exactly what I'm saying.”
He pointed toward the floor.
“I helped move them.”
Sarah's stomach twisted.
“How many?”
Daniel's eyes filled with tears.
“Seven.”
The police immediately surrounded him.
Detective Cole asked:
“Where?”
Daniel pointed toward the chapel.
“Under the altar.”
Sarah followed them downstairs.
Every step felt unreal.
The chapel was small.
Beautiful.
White stone.
A wooden cross.
No sign of anything sinister.
Detective Cole examined the floor.
“Move the altar.”
Three officers pushed.
Nothing.
Daniel whispered:
“There's a mechanism.”
Margaret looked at him.
“You opened it before.”
“Once.”
“Do it again.”
Daniel approached.
His hands shook.
He pressed a stone hidden beneath the altar.
A click sounded.
The floor opened.
Cold air rushed upward.
Sarah covered Leo's face.
The stairs beneath were narrow.
Detective Cole went first.
Then Margaret.
Sarah followed.
At the bottom was a concrete chamber.
Seven steel doors lined the walls.
Each had a name.
Sarah stared.
Her knees nearly gave out.
One read:
MARGARET WALKER
Another:
NATHAN WALKER
Another:
JAMES WALKER
Another:
RICHARD VALE
The remaining three names were unfamiliar.
Daniel whispered:
“They weren't all dead.”
Sarah turned.
“What?”
“They were witnesses.”
Margaret stepped toward the first door.
It opened.
Inside was empty.
Only a pile of photographs.
She picked one up.
Sarah recognized the woman immediately.
It was her mother.
Alive.
Standing beside a newborn.
Sarah stopped breathing.
“Leo?”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
The baby in the photograph was smaller.
Newborn.
Beside him stood Richard Vale.
And behind Richard…
Eleanor.
Sarah stared.
“When was this taken?”
Margaret looked at the date.
“The night Leo was born.”
Sarah felt dizzy.
“But Leo was born at the hospital.”
“No.”
Margaret looked at Daniel.
“He was born here.”
Daniel said nothing.
Sarah looked down at her son.
Her entire understanding of his birth collapsed.
“Why would they lie?”
Margaret turned another photograph over.
On the back was written:
SECOND CHILD. HIDDEN UNTIL LEGAL TRANSFER COMPLETE.
Sarah stared.
“Second child?”
Margaret nodded.
“Leo had a twin.”
The words hit like a gunshot.
Sarah whispered:
“That's impossible.”
“Your mother gave birth to two babies.”
“Where is the other?”
Margaret pointed toward the seventh door.
Sarah walked closer.
The nameplate had been scratched away.
Only three letters remained.
EVE—
Sarah touched it.
“Evelyn?”
Margaret froze.
“Where did you hear that name?”
Sarah remembered the ledger.
A payment.
A missing line.
A name that appeared only once.
Evelyn Vale.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Margaret looked at Eleanor.
The older woman was standing at the top of the stairs.
She had somehow escaped her handcuffs.
A gun appeared in her hand.
Police shouted.
Eleanor raised it.
Not at Sarah.
At the photographs.
She fired.
The picture in Margaret's hand exploded.
Everyone ducked.
Eleanor ran.
Sarah screamed.
“Stop her!”
Officers chased.
But before disappearing into the darkness, Eleanor shouted one sentence.
“You don't understand!”
Sarah stood frozen.
Then she saw something beneath the shattered photograph.
A handwritten message.
The second child is alive.
And beneath it:
Her name is Evelyn.
Sarah's blood ran cold.
Because the baby's cries from behind the nursery wall suddenly made sense.
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There had been another child in this house.
And someone had never stopped looking for her.
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