Chapter 3 - The Secret Behind the Bedroom Door
The note dropped from my fingers as if it were burning hot coal.
“Don't believe her if she says anything about the closet.”
Those words hammered against my brain like a physical blow. A cold wave of fury washed away my panic, replaced by an icy, calculated wrath that I hadn't felt since I was a young man. Eric hadn't just neglected his sick, helpless daughter; he had intentionally poisoned her with adult narcotics to get her out of the way for a vacation, locked her in a house alone, and left a note mocking her suffering.
Sirens wailed in the distance, growing louder by the second as the ambulance drew closer to the cul-de-sac.
Before I could turn back to Lily, a faint, muffled sound echoed from the upstairs hallway.
Thump.
I froze. I looked down at Lily, who was too weak to even lift her head, then back toward the dark staircase leading to the second floor.
Thump. Scratch.
It wasn't the sound of settling house timbers or a stray pet. It sounded like someone—or something—hitting a wooden door from the inside with a closed fist.
“Grandpa…” Lily murmured, her eyes fluttering open as she weakly reached out and grabbed my thumb. “Noah… daddy put Noah in the…”
She didn't finish the sentence, her eyes rolling back as unconsciousness took her again.
I didn't wait for the paramedics to breach the front door. I bolted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, my knees screaming in protest. The upstairs hallway was pitch black. I flicked on the wall switch, illuminating the quiet, neatly decorated bedrooms belonging to my grandchildren.
The sound came again, clearer this time.
“Help! Let me out!”
It was a boy's voice. Small, terrified, and choked with tears.
Noah.
I ran toward the master bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was wide open, but the walk-in closet door—a heavy, floor-to-ceiling solid oak door with an exterior deadbolt lock installed high up on the frame—was firmly shut.
A heavy, shiny brass padlock was clicked through a metal hasp bolted directly into the wooden doorframe.
My breath caught in my throat. Eric had installed an exterior lock on his ten-year-old son’s bedroom closet.
“Noah?!” I shouted, throwing my weight against the heavy wood.
“Grandpa?!” Noah’s voice cried from the other side, frantic and sobbing. “Is that you? Dad locked me in here! He said I ruined the packing list and I had to stay here until Sunday! It’s so hot, Grandpa, I can't breathe!”
Rage, pure and blinding, surged through my veins with such intensity that I felt entirely invincible. I looked around the master bedroom like a madman, searching for something—anything—to smash the lock apart.
On the corner of Eric’s dresser sat a heavy, solid-brass decorative statue of a charging bull weighing at least fifteen pounds.
I grabbed it by the horns, rushed across the room, and swung it with all the remaining strength in my body directly against the brass padlock.
CLANG!
The sound of shattering metal echoed through the empty house like a gunshot. I swung it a second time.
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CRACK!
The metal hasp ripped out of the wooden frame with a splintering groan, and the heavy door flew inward, crashing against the wall inside the dark, sweltering walk-in closet.
