PART 4

There was writing on the back.

Emily’s handwriting.

My sister had written:

Sarah, if Noah reaches you, don’t trust anyone who says I’m dead.

I stopped breathing.

“What?”

Tyler looked at me.

“What does it say?”

I couldn’t answer.

Because at that exact moment, headlights appeared through the cracks in the shed.

A vehicle had entered the alley behind our house.

Someone was coming from the other side.

Then my phone vibrated again.

THE MAN IN YOUR HOUSE IS NOT ALONE.

I looked at Noah.

“Where is the blue envelope?”

He shook his head.

“I hid it.”

“Where?”

He looked toward the house.

“In the place Daddy would never look.”

Before I could ask what that meant, we heard the sound of the back door opening again.

Then a second man’s voice.

“Mark.”

Mark answered immediately.

“They’re not here.”

The stranger replied:

“Then check the shed.”

My blood turned to ice.

The boys stared at me.

Someone knew exactly where we were.

I reached for the shed door.

There was nowhere else to go.

Then Noah whispered:

“There’s another way.”

He pointed toward the floor.

Beneath an old tarp was a wooden hatch.

I had owned this house for eleven years.

I had never known it existed.

Noah lifted the tarp.

There was a small metal ring.

I pulled it.

The hatch opened.

A narrow staircase disappeared into darkness beneath the shed.

Tyler looked at me.

“Mom?”

I didn’t know where it led.

I didn’t know who had built it.

And I didn’t know why my six-year-old nephew knew about it.

But footsteps were already approaching the shed.

So I climbed down.

The boys followed.

I pulled the hatch shut above us.

Darkness swallowed us whole.

For several seconds, none of us moved.

Then I heard someone step into the shed.

The floorboards creaked directly above our heads.

A man’s voice whispered:

“Search everything.”

Tyler squeezed my hand.

Noah pointed down the tunnel.

And then, for the first time that night, I saw something that made me realize this had been planned long before Mark ever arrived at my house.

On the wall was a message painted in white.

Three words.

TRUST SARAH ONLY.

I stared at it.

Because I suddenly understood.

My sister hadn’t sent Noah to me because she was having marital problems.

She had sent him because she was running from something.

And somehow…

she had known exactly where we would hide.

The tunnel was so narrow that I had to turn my shoulders sideways to keep moving.

Behind me, Tyler’s breathing was fast and uneven.

Noah was strangely quiet.

Too quiet.

I kept one hand against the wall and the other wrapped around Tyler’s wrist.

“Stay close,” I whispered.

Above us, the men were still searching the shed.

I could hear them dragging boxes.

Something heavy scraped across the floor.

Then a man’s voice said:

“There’s a hatch.”

My blood froze.

“They’re underneath us.”

Tyler looked at me.

I shook my head gently.

No sound.

No panic.

We had to keep moving.

The tunnel sloped downward.

Cold air brushed my face.

Then I saw a faint light ahead.

We hurried toward it.

The passage ended at an old concrete wall.

At first I thought we’d reached a dead end.

Then Noah reached past me.

His small hand found something hidden between two bricks.

A metal latch.

He pulled it.

A section of the wall moved inward.

CONTINUE FOR NEXT PART….