Chapter 3 - The Door Under the Pantry
Police were called immediately.
Claire begged William not to.
He ignored her.
Deputies arrived within fifteen minutes.
The kitchen floor was opened.
Investigators discovered the grate connected to an old service corridor built when the farmhouse still had a coal furnace.
There was another entrance.
Behind the pantry shelves.
A concealed door.
William had lived in the house for nine years.
He never knew it existed.
The shelves moved on a hidden rail.
Behind them was a narrow stairway descending underground.
At the bottom stood a locked wooden door.
Deputies broke it open.
Lily was inside.
The room contained a mattress.
Water bottles.
A lamp.
Several empty food packages.
And something that made William’s confusion deepen.
The room did not look as though Lily had been there for four years.
There was little dust.
The food packaging was recent.
One bottle had an expiration date eighteen months away.
A detective asked:
“How long have you been in this room?”
Lily answered:
“Eleven days.”
William looked at Claire.
Eleven days.
Not four years.
That meant Lily had been alive and free somewhere else until less than two weeks ago.
The mystery was suddenly bigger.
Where had she been for the previous four years?
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And who had brought her back?
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