Chapter 2 - The Secret in the Trunk and Emily’s Silent Warning
Inside the dim garage, the air tasted of stale gasoline, dust, and old cardboard. The only illumination came from narrow slivers of moonlight cutting through the high transom windows near the roof. Tyler was clinging to my waist so tightly I could barely breathe, while Noah stood near an old workbench, staring intently at the heavy wooden door leading out to the driveway.
“He’s looking for us,” Tyler whispered, his voice trembling on the verge of tears. “Mom, why does Uncle Mark have a hammer?”
I knelt down, pulling both boys close so my face was level with theirs. My hands were shaking, but I forced my voice to remain steady—the anchor they desperately needed in the middle of a nightmare.
“I don't know, buddy,” I whispered back, my eyes darting around the garage for something heavy to barricade the door with. “But we are safe in here, and I am not going to let anything happen to either of you. Do you understand me? Look at me.”
Both boys nodded solemnly.
“We are going to stay very quiet, and then we are going to get into the car and drive away. But first… Noah.” I turned my gaze to my nephew, whose pale blond hair was matted with sweat. “You need to tell me something. When did your dad start acting like this? Why did you know he was coming?”
Noah swallowed hard, his small hands knotting into the fabric of his oversized t-shirt. He looked down at the concrete floor as if the memories were too heavy to lift.
“Last week,” Noah whispered, his voice so soft I had to strain to hear it over the distant hum of the refrigerator inside the house. “Before he dropped me off here. He… he made me practice.”
A cold shiver raced down my spine. “Practice what, Noah?”
“He told me that if we ever came to Aunt Sarah’s house, and he parked the black sedan down the street without turning on the headlights, I had to watch him,” Noah said, tears finally spilling over his eyelashes. “He said if he walked up the driveway with his hands in his pockets, I had to find a way to make everyone hide in the bushes before he got to the door. He said if I didn't… if I didn't do it right, he would take Mommy away where I’d never see her again.”
My stomach churned with a sickening wave of nausea. Mark wasn't just trespassing; he was using his own six-year-old son as a scouting pawn in a twisted, calculated game of intimidation.
Where was Emily?
For three days, my sister’s phone had gone straight to voicemail. I had assumed she was busy with work or taking a quiet weekend getaway while Noah stayed with us for the summer. But now, remembering the terrified look in Mark’s eyes when he dropped Noah off on Saturday morning—the way he kept glancing down the street, the hurried manner in which he sped off before I could even invite him inside for coffee—the ugly truth began to crystallize.
Emily wasn't on a getaway. Emily was trapped.
Across the garage, near the back wall, sat my old station wagon. Beside it, tucked neatly under a dusty canvas tarp, sat Mark’s black sedan—the very vehicle Mr. Foster had spotted circling the block the night before.
Wait. Mark’s sedan was parked inside my garage?
I frowned in confusion. If Mark’s car was hidden under a tarp in my garage, then what vehicle had just parked down the street? What black sedan had Mr. Foster seen circling the neighborhood?
Quietly, stepping as lightly as possible across the concrete, I crept toward the covered vehicle. I peeled back the heavy canvas corner just enough to look inside the parked sedan. The driver’s seat was empty, the steering wheel locked, and a thick layer of dust coated the dashboard. It hadn't been driven in weeks.
That meant the car parked outside on my street belonged to someone else.
Mark wasn't working alone.
Before I could process the terrifying implications of that discovery, a sharp, metallic rattle echoed from the side door of the garage.
Someone was rattling the exterior doorknob.
“Sarah!” Mark’s voice boomed from outside, muffled by the heavy wood, but dripping with a toxic, manic sweetness. “I know you’re out here! I saw the kitchen window open! Open the door before I have to break it down!”
Tyler let out a muffled squeak of terror, burying his face in my jacket. Noah grabbed my hand, squeezing it with surprising strength.
The doorknob rattled again, violently this time, followed by the dull, heavy thud of a boot kicking the wooden frame.
I looked frantically around the garage. There was no back exit except the overhead garage door, which was secured by a heavy interior deadbolt and a floor latch that took two adults to disengage. We were trapped.
Unless…
My eyes landed on a heavy steel crowbar leaning against the workbench, right beside an old wooden crate. And above the workbench, sitting on a high shelf, was the spare set of keys to my station wagon, hanging right next to the garage remote.
If I could get the station wagon started, I could smash right through the wooden garage doors before Mark could break the side lock.
“Tyler, Noah,” I whispered fiercely, grabbing both of their shoulders. “Listen to me very carefully. Get into the back seat of the station wagon right now. Put your seatbelts on immediately, pull the blankets over your heads, and do not look out the windows no matter what you hear. Do you understand?”
“Mom, what are you going to do?” Tyler cried softly.
“I’m going to open our way out,” I said, my voice hardening into absolute steel. “Go!”
The boys scrambled across the concrete and dove through the rear passenger doors of the station wagon, pulling a spare moving blanket over themselves just as another massive kick rattled the garage’s side door. Wood splintered around the deadbolt. A crack appeared in the frame.
I grabbed the heavy steel crowbar with both hands, positioned myself beside the driver’s side door of the station wagon, and reached up to grab the car keys off the shelf.
Then, the side door burst open with a deafening crash of splintered wood and flying screws.
May you like
Mark stepped into the dim garage, holding the claw hammer in one hand, his eyes wild and dilated in the dark.
And right behind him, stepping through the broken doorway into the shadows, was a second man I had never seen before in my life—holding a roll of heavy packing tape.
