Chapter 6 - The Second Visit.
Daniel read Kara's sentence again as if repetition might change the words.
Daniel took Little L downstairs.
Detective Cole closed the notebook.
"You told me you returned only once to remove the bolt."
Daniel looked from Cole to me.
"I did."
"Kara recorded a second visit."
"Then she remembered it wrong."
My anger flared instantly.
"That is the same excuse Marcus used."
Daniel's face tightened.
"I am not Marcus."
"Then stop sounding like him."
Cole stepped between the argument before it grew.
"Mr. Mercer, think carefully. Did you ever take a younger foster child downstairs after the complaint?"
Daniel shook his head.
Then he stopped.
It was so small that I almost missed it.
A memory arriving.
"There was one afternoon."
I laughed once, without humor.
"Of course there was."
Daniel ignored me.
"Marcus called and said the county was coming back. He wanted me to remove some tools from the basement because he said they violated storage rules."
"When?"
"A few days after the first inspection."
"And Lily was there?"
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
"I didn't know her name."
Cole's voice sharpened.
"Was the little girl there?"
"Yes."
"Did you take her downstairs?"
Daniel closed his eyes.
"I carried her down the stairs."
My stomach turned.
"Why?"
"Because she was asleep on the couch and Marcus told me he needed the living room clear for the county worker."
The answer was almost absurd in its ordinariness.
"Where did you put her?"
"In the finished family room at the bottom of the stairs."
"Near the blue room?"
"Across the hall."
"Did you put her in the blue room?"
"No."
"Did Marcus?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Not while I was there."
Cole opened the notebook again.
"Kara did not write that you put Little L in the blue room. She wrote that you took her downstairs."
Daniel looked relieved.
I was not.
"Why didn't you mention this yesterday?"
"Because I didn't remember it until now."
"You remembered where the bolt was stored for six years."
"Trauma doesn't organize itself logically, Rachel."
The phrase sounded borrowed.
"Do not use therapy language to make your lies sound like symptoms."
He looked away.
Cole asked about the tools Daniel had allegedly removed.
Daniel said they belonged to their father's old contracting business and were stored in red metal boxes.
The storage unit contained no red boxes.
That detail bothered Cole.
"Where did they go?"
"Marcus kept them."
"Then why were you asked to remove them?"
Daniel stared at the notebook.
"I don't know."
Cole ordered the unit photographed and inventoried.
Near the back, detectives found three old cell phones, two dead laptop computers, and a stack of mini-DV tapes from a camcorder.
Daniel claimed he had forgotten all of them.
Cole did not hide his skepticism.
One phone was a black iPhone with a shattered corner.
Daniel recognized it immediately.
"That's the phone I used back then."
"The video phone?"
"Yes."
The battery had swollen and would not power on.
Cole sealed it for digital recovery.
I felt the first fragile spark of hope since the nightmare began.
If the original phone still contained the basement video, the stolen flash drive mattered less.
Daniel seemed to think the same thing.
"If they recover it, you'll see I was telling the truth."
I looked at him.
"About which version?"
He had no answer.
The next morning, I took Lily to school only after her therapist and Nina agreed the routine would help.
I told the principal there was a family investigation and that only Megan or I could pick Lily up.
Daniel's name was temporarily removed from the authorized list.
I expected him to protest.
He did not.
He sent one text.
Understood.
At 11:20, my office receptionist called me upstairs from a conference room.
"There's a woman here asking for you."
"Who?"
"She says her name is Kara Bell."
For a moment I thought I had misheard.
I walked into the reception area and saw a thin young woman in a denim jacket standing near the window.
She looked older than the photograph left on Daniel's windshield but unmistakably similar.
Dark hair.
Watchful eyes.
A scar through one eyebrow.
She held a backpack against her stomach.
"Rachel Mercer?"
"Yes."
"I'm Kara."
I did not know whether to hug her, call Cole, or step away.
"How did you find me?"
"Daniel's name was online with your company."
"Does anyone know you're here?"
Her eyes moved toward the windows.
"I hope not."
I brought her into a small meeting room and called Detective Cole immediately.
Kara asked me not to tell Daniel she had come.
"Why?"
"Because I don't know which Daniel I'm going to get."
That sentence stayed with me.
Cole arrived twenty minutes later with a victim advocate.
Kara agreed to speak.
She had left foster care at eighteen months earlier and had been living with a friend's family under an informal arrangement.
The photograph on Daniel's windshield had been recent.
She knew because she remembered the day she wore that jacket.
"Who took it?"
Cole asked.
"I don't know."
"Why didn't you contact police?"
"Because the last time I told adults what happened in that house, everything got worse."
Her eyes shifted toward me.
"No offense."
"None taken."
Cole placed a photocopy of her old notebook page on the table.
Kara stared at it for a long time.
"I forgot they kept this."
"You wrote that Daniel took Little L downstairs."
She nodded.
"Do you remember why?"
Kara's face tightened.
"Because Marcus told him to hide her."
Daniel's explanation about clearing the living room suddenly felt thinner.
"Hide her from whom?"
"The county lady."
Cole leaned forward.
"Was Lily in the blue room?"
"Not when Daniel carried her down."
"Where did he put her?"
"In the TV room."
That matched Daniel.
Then Kara added something he had not told us.
"But he locked the basement door at the top of the stairs."
I stared at her.
"Daniel locked it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Marcus told him if the county lady heard us downstairs, we'd all be moved."
"Who was downstairs?"
"Me, Little L, and another boy named Mateo."
Cole wrote quickly.
"Did Daniel leave you there?"
"For maybe an hour."
"Could you get upstairs?"
"No."
The room became silent.
It was not the blue room.
It was still confinement.
Daniel had not simply witnessed Marcus's behavior.
He had participated.
Kara watched my face.
"He came back."
"Daniel?"
"Yes."
"What did he do?"
"He opened the basement door and told us the county lady was gone."
Kara swallowed.
"Then he gave me his phone."
Cole stopped writing.
"Why?"
"He told me to record anything Marcus did when he wasn't there."
My heart began pounding.
"The old iPhone?"
"I don't know. It was black."
"Did you record something?"
Kara nodded.
"Yes."
"What?"
Her eyes filled but she did not look away.
"Marcus talking to Mr. Renner."
Cole went completely still.
"The investigator?"
"Yes."
"What were they saying?"
Kara's voice dropped.
"Marcus said he had already fixed the report."
I felt a chill crawl over my arms.
"How?"
"He said Renner would make the blue room disappear on paper."
Cole asked where the recording went.
Kara looked down at her hands.
"I gave the phone back to Daniel."
"Did Daniel hear it?"
"Yes."
"What did he do?"
Kara's answer came immediately.
"He got scared."
"Did he give it to police?"
"No."
"Did he tell you why?"
"He said he needed time."
Kara's mouth twisted with bitterness.
"Adults always needed time."
I understood exactly what she meant.
Cole asked if she remembered any exact words from the recording.
Kara thought for a moment.
"Renner said, 'No lock, no case.'"
Then she looked directly at me.
"And Marcus said Daniel would keep quiet because Daniel had signed the paperwork too."
I felt nauseated.
Kara reached into her backpack.
"There's something else."
She placed a tiny silver memory card on the table.
"I copied part of the recording before I gave the phone back."
Cole stared at it.
"You've had this for six years?"
"Not exactly."
"Where was it?"
"Taped inside the cover of my old school dictionary."
"Why bring it now?"
Kara looked at the photograph of herself that had been left on Daniel's car.
"Because whoever took that picture already knows I'm alive."
Cole sealed the card in an evidence bag.
My phone buzzed on the table.
A message from Daniel.
Digital lab found something on the old phone. Cole wants me at the station.
I showed Cole.
He frowned.
"I did not send for Daniel."
My skin went cold.
Another message appeared from Daniel.
I'm already here.
Cole stood immediately and called the station.
Nobody there had asked Daniel to come.
Then Daniel's phone sent one final text.
May you like
Rachel, Marcus is here.
THE LOCKED DOOR
