Chapter 8 - The Basement Door
Claire denied it for exactly thirty seconds.
Then she stopped.
"I was trying to help," she whispered.
Daniel stared at her. "That sentence has never made anything better."
"Emma called me. She was thirteen. She was alone. Rebecca had left her at a motel and gone to get food. Emma was terrified."
"So you called your parents."
"I called my father. I thought he would bring her somewhere safe."
Rose laughed bitterly.
"He brought her home."
Claire covered her face.
"I didn't know what they would do."
"What did they do?" Daniel asked.
Rose's eyes moved to Lily.
Daniel understood.
"Not here."
"I can hear," Lily said quietly.
Daniel knelt. "I know. But you shouldn't have to hear everything."
A loud bang came from downstairs.
Everyone froze.
Then another.
The sound of a door being forced.
Rose whispered, "They found the coal door."
Daniel looked at the bedroom window. Second floor. Too high for Lily.
"Is there another exit?"
Rose nodded toward the closet.
"The tunnel goes to the garage wall."
They moved fast.
Daniel went first with his phone flashlight. Rose followed, then Lily, then Claire.
The corridor dropped behind a false panel and became a narrow wooden staircase between walls.
Halfway down, Daniel smelled damp earth.
Rose whispered, "Don't step on the third board."
He stopped.
"Why?"
"Alarm."
Daniel stepped over it.
Claire did not.
The board clicked beneath her foot.
A shrill beep sounded once.
Rose spun around. "Why did you do that?"
"I slipped!"
From below came a man's voice.
"They're in the west passage!"
Daniel's blood turned cold.
Footsteps pounded beneath them.
Rose pushed open a side panel.
"In here!"
They squeezed into darkness just as flashlight beams sliced through the passage.
Two men rushed past.
One of them carried a gun.
The other said, "Mrs. Vale wants the child alive."
Daniel felt Lily's fingers close around his.
Then Claire whispered, almost too softly to hear:
May you like
"Which child?"
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