It was a quiet Monday evening, the kind where even clock ticks too loud. Then came a knock, not urgent but deliberate. Three even taps.
I opened the door only to find a strange woman in her early thirties, soaked to the bone, mascara streaked, holding a bag and a Polaroid picture.
“I am sorry” she said, in her trembling voice. “This was the last address in her notebook”. I stared at her, confused.
“Whose notebook?”
“My sister Amelia Shepherd, she’s missing and this- this is your house.” She held up the polaroid. In the picture was a woman in her mid twenties, brown hair, big eyes, standing on my porch in broad daylight.
But I had never seen her before in my life.
“ I don’t know this woman” I said carefully.
Her jaw clenched, “She came here, I tracked her through the Gps logs, she came here last week.”
“No one’s been here” , I said “I live here alone, I work from home, you have the wrong place.”
But I was lying, because I did know her. Amelia had come to my door three nights ago, said she was an investigative reporter following a cold murder case that had led her to this neighbourhood, to this street.
To me.
She said the victim was a girl names Lily, who was murdered eight years ago. Her notes were full of names, addresses and theories connecting a quiet suburban neighbourhood to a girl who had vanished without a trace. But she got too close, that night Amelia tripped a wire in my basement, she found the room, she saw too much. I told myself that it was an accident. It wasn’t.
Now her sister was here, she insisted on staying for the night. “Just for night”, she said. “I’ll be gone in the morning, please.”
I let her in.
She said her name was Claire Shepherd. She moved through my house like someone visiting a museum- carefully, eyes sweeping every object, every corner, every photo on the wall. I wondered how long it’ll take her to find the basement door.
“I am sorry to barge in like this” she said drinking the cup of coffee I made for her. “Amelia is the only family I have, I just want to know if she’s safe”. I nodded pretending to understand, pretending to empathise, “You’re welcome to stay for the night, I’ve got a guest room upstairs.”
She smiled. Grateful. Tired.
She didn’t ask about the basement.
She finished her coffee and I lead her to the room for the night. But later when I went to sleep - after I pretended to sleep. I heard the creek of hallway floorboards, heard her open a door then another followed by footsteps on the stairs.
She was looking. I slipped out of bed carefully following her. I had sealed the room behind a false wall, she wouldn’t find it unless she knew what to look for.
As I descended the stairs, I saw something chilling.
The basement door was already open.
Claire stood at the bottom of the basement steps, holding a flashlight. Not a phone flashlight but an actual tactical one. She was ready for this.
“Claire?” I said gently.
She turned.
“You knew she came here, didn’t you?”
She said, I didn’t answer.
She lifted a small shiny object, a Key. “She mailed this to me two days before she went missing, said that this would open the truth.”
Then she turned and stepped into the basement room. The panel slid open with a soft click. I froze at the top of the basement stairs as Claire stepped inside, I could barely see the outline in the dim light. The tactical flashlight cut across the space, sweeping over the concrete floor, over the wall lined with photographs, maps and old newspaper clippings.
There was a loud scream. A panel shifting.
And I knew- she found my trophies.
The walls told the stories I never shared. Victims who were long forgotten. Cold cases that never warmed. Their faces looked back at her- some terrified, some serene, all gone.
She wasn’t just a grieving sister. She came prepared, with tools, with notes, with a plan.
I took a breath, reached into my pocket and felt the cold metal of the scalpel I had hidden earlier.
Then came her voice, “Where is my sister?”
I descended slowly, scalpel in hand, hiding it in the folds of my robe. “You shouldn’t be down here, you know”. I said. “Its not safe to be in the basement of a stranger at this time of the night.”
“I had to be” she said.
I stood there, smiling. “Where is my sister” she screamed.
My grip on the scalpel tightened as I saw her terrified face. Now that she was in the basement there would be no more pretending.
Only silence
And blood.
React
