Chapter 5 - BURIED SECRETSThe stone steps were slick with moisture. With every step down into the basement, the air grew colder, thick with the heavy stench of damp soil and dried concrete.
My flashlight beam danced across exposed brick walls, rusty water pipes, and stacked wooden crates covered in cobwebs.
At first glance, it looked like a normal, abandoned storage cellar. But as I swept the light across the far side of the room, I noticed something strange.
The basement floor was mostly packed earth, but in the center of the far wall, there was a fresh, uneven patch of gray concrete. It looked hastily poured, rough around the edges, stretching about six feet long and three feet wide.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I walked slowly toward the concrete patch.
Beside it, half-hidden behind a stack of rotting wooden pallets, sat a rusted iron spade and two empty bags of quick-setting cement.
This was it.
The place where Jack Thompson thought he had buried his past.
I dropped to my knees on the cold earth, my flashlight focused entirely on the concrete patch. The surface was uneven, marked with crude tool scratches.
Suddenly, my flash light caught something glinting near the edge of the cement line—partially trapped beneath the hard gray shell.
I reached out with trembling fingers and brushed away the loose dirt covering it.
It was a small, gold band. A woman's ring, embedded at the edge of the poured concrete. Engraved on the inner band, barely visible beneath the caked mud, were three small initials:
E.R.T.
Tears prickled at the back of my eyes. A deep, agonizing surge of horror and empathy washed over me. Evelyn hadn't just been murdered; she had been erased, buried beneath the dirt while Jack moved on to his next victim. Me.
"I found you," I sobbed quietly, touching the cold metal of the ring. "I found you, Evelyn."
Suddenly, a floorboard creaked loudly above my head.
THUD.
I froze instantly, pulling my hand back.
The sound of footsteps echoed overhead—heavy, deliberate steps moving across the wooden floorboards of the kitchen right above the basement.
My breath caught in my throat. The police? Detective Vance?
No. I hadn't given Vance the address. Nobody knew I was here.
Except one person.
"Claire..." a voice called down from the top of the dark staircase.
It wasn't Detective Vance.
It was Jack.
May you like
His voice was terrifyingly calm, echoey, and laced with a cold, psychotic friendliness that made my skin crawl.
"I knew you couldn't resist, Claire," Jack’s voice drifted down the stairs as the heavy footfalls began to descend. "You always were too smart for your own good. Just like her."
