Chapter 4 - The House on Aspen Ridge Had Secrets
By sunrise, I had not slept.
Lily dozed in short bursts, waking every twenty minutes to make sure I was still beside her. Each time, I raised our joined hands so she could see my fingers wrapped around hers.
“I’m here,” I whispered.
At six-thirty, Marissa Cole returned with Officer Harris and a detective named Graham Barnes. Barnes was in his late forties, tall, tired-eyed, and quiet in a way that made everyone else talk too much.
He asked if I would walk him through the house.
“I don’t want to leave Lily.”
“She’ll be watched,” Marissa said. “And we need to secure anything before it disappears.”
That word decided me.
Disappear.
Like Taylor’s broken wrist report.
Like the photos Evelyn kept.
Like the childhood my daughter should have had.
I kissed Lily’s forehead. “I’ll be right back.”
She grabbed my sleeve. “Don’t go to Grandma.”
“I’m going with police.”
“Police don’t scare her.”
That sentence stayed with me the entire drive back to Aspen Ridge.
The house looked different in daylight. Smaller. More ordinary. It offended me somehow that a place could hold horror and still have pumpkins on the porch.
Crime scene tape stretched across the garage entrance. Evelyn’s car was gone.
“Did she leave last night?” I asked.
Barnes glanced at Harris.
“She was interviewed and released pending further investigation.”
I stopped walking. “Released?”
“Mr. Mercer, I understand your frustration.”
“You don’t understand anything if that woman slept in her own bed while my daughter slept under heated blankets in a hospital.”
Barnes did not argue. “Then help me build the case correctly.”
That shut me up.
Inside the garage, everything was exactly as I remembered. The freezer sat against the far wall, lid closed now, quiet and innocent-looking. Officer Harris opened it with gloved hands.
The sight hit me again.
Frozen vegetables. meat packages. a half-empty bag of ice. A child-sized gap in the middle.
Barnes leaned closer. “No interior release.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Some newer models have safety mechanisms. This one doesn’t. A child inside would have no way to open it.”
My chest tightened.
He examined the rim of the lid. Then he looked at the wall behind it.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“There are scratches here. Not old. Someone moved this freezer recently.”
He called for a tech.
I turned slowly, scanning the shelves, boxes, hooks. This garage had once been mine too. I knew where everything belonged. The camping gear used to sit near the back. My tools had been on the left wall. Taylor had reorganized after I moved out.
Or Evelyn had.
A stack of plastic storage bins stood beneath the stairs. Each had a handwritten label.
HOLIDAY.
BABY CLOTHES.
TAYLOR SCHOOL.
FAMILY.
The last one made my pulse jump.
“Detective.”
Barnes followed my gaze. “Don’t touch it.”
A technician photographed the bin before opening it. Inside were old photo albums, envelopes, a bundle of children’s drawings, and a black metal lockbox.
“Do you know the combination?” Barnes asked.
“No.”
“Taylor might.”
“Evelyn definitely does.”
He lifted the lockbox into an evidence bag.
As he did, something slipped from between two albums and fluttered onto the concrete.
A photograph.
The technician picked it up with gloved fingers and placed it on a clean board.
It showed Taylor as a teenager, sitting at a kitchen table with red eyes and a stiff smile. Evelyn stood behind her with one hand on Taylor’s shoulder.
On the back, written in elegant blue ink, were four words:
After the closet lesson.
I felt sick.
Barnes read it twice. His jaw tightened.
“There are more,” the technician said.
The albums were full of pictures like that.
Taylor at eight, face blotchy from crying, holding a sign that said I WILL LISTEN.
Taylor at twelve, standing barefoot in snow on the back porch.
A boy I didn’t recognize, maybe ten years old, sitting on a basement step with his hands folded too neatly.
On the back of that one:
Henry, after lying.
“Who’s Henry?” Barnes asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
But that wasn’t completely true.
Once, early in our marriage, I found Taylor crying in the nursery before Lily was born. She had been holding a small blue blanket from a box Evelyn sent over.
When I asked what was wrong, Taylor said, “I had a brother.”
Had.
Not have.
I asked what happened.
She said he got sick.
Then she never spoke of him again.
Barnes looked at me. “Mr. Mercer?”
“Taylor had a brother named Henry,” I said slowly. “I think he died when they were kids.”
The garage seemed to grow colder around us.
Barnes ordered the entire bin bagged.
That was when my phone buzzed.
A text from an unknown number.
At first, I thought it was spam.
Then I read it.
Drop this before Lily loses both parents.
A second message came immediately after.
You were never meant to come Thursday.
Attached was a photo.
Me, standing in Taylor’s garage the night before, holding Lily after pulling her from the freezer.
May you like
The photo had been taken from inside the house.
Someone had been watching.
