Chapter 3 - Secrets Beneath the SurfaceThe sterile white lights of the county hospital emergency room buzzed overhead, casting a harsh glare over the tiny exam cubicle. Emily was wrapped in a thermal blanket, sipping warm apple juice from a paper cup while a nurse gently cleaned the dried blood from her split lip.
I sat on the edge of the examination table, my hand locked tightly around her small, cold fingers. My palm was still caked in dried blood from where the rusty wire on Mrs. Harris's fence had sliced it open, but I didn't care about the pain. Every time I looked away from Emily, my chest tightened with the terrifying thought that she might vanish again.
A soft knock interrupted the hum of the room, and Detective Vance walked in. He was a tall, imposing man in a rumpled gray suit with a notebook tucked under his arm and eyes that looked like they had seen the absolute worst of humanity.
"Mr. Hayes?" he asked quietly, closing the curtain behind him. "Can we talk for a moment? Outside?"
I looked down at Emily. She nodded sleepily, her eyelids heavy from the trauma and the exhaustion. "Go ahead, Daddy. I'll stay right here."
I stepped out into the hallway, pulling the privacy curtain shut behind me. Detective Vance didn't waste any time.
"We searched the entire house," Vance said, flipping open his notebook. "Every room, the crawlspace, the attic. There is no trace of Jason Miller. No clothes in the closet, no passport, no wallet. The master bedroom closet looks like it was packed up days ago."
"He was there," I insisted, my voice rising. "I saw the curtain move. Mrs. Harris saw him carrying black trash bags into the backyard last night. You need to drain that pool right now!"
Vance held up a hand, his expression grim. "We’ve already dispatched county divers to the residence. The water in that pool is heavily contaminated with chemical runoff and oil, which makes visibility zero. But that's not why I pulled you out here, Mr. Hayes."
He turned the notebook toward me, revealing a polaroid photo taken by one of the crime scene techs.
It was a close-up of the interior of the dog cage where I had found my daughter. Scratched into the gray plastic floor panels, faint and jagged, were dozens of tally marks. Next to them, spelled out in what looked like faded grease pencil, was a single word:
SIXTEEN.
"Sixteen days," Vance said softly. "According to neighbors, Emily's school attendance record shows she hasn't been seen in class for over three weeks. But Sarah signed off on remote learning waivers. And according to Sarah... she claims she had no idea the cage was in the backyard."
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I stared at the detective, the blood rushing in my ears. "You don't believe her, do you?"
"I don't believe in coincidences, Mr. Hayes," Vance replied, narrowing his eyes. "And right now, Sarah’s story is full of holes. But what worries me more is what those divers are going to find at the bottom of that pool."
