Chapter 3 – GHOSTS IN THE WALLS

“Daniel owned this house?” I staggered back, dropping the drawing onto the sofa.

“I bought it for him,” Gabriel said, stepping closer. “Before the warehouse attack. He told me he needed a place to hide. He wouldn’t tell me why.”

I shook my head, my mind racing. “But Lily drew this in our Chicago apartment. How did it get here?”

Gabriel stared at the drawing of the scarred man. His brother.

“Leo died a decade ago,” Gabriel murmured, almost to himself. “His car went off a bridge. They never found the body.”

“Then who did Lily draw?”

Before Gabriel could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out.

It was an unknown number.

I answered it on speaker.

“Rachel,” Marcus’s voice crackled through the line. He sounded out of breath. “Listen to me very carefully. You need to get out of that house.”

Gabriel leaned toward the phone. “Where are you, Marcus?”

“Gabe?” Marcus laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. “You brought them to the safe house? You idiot. You just walked them right into the trap.”

“What trap?” Gabriel demanded.

“The one Daniel set,” Marcus said. “I didn’t threaten Rachel three years ago. I paid her rent. I kept her hidden. Because I knew if you found her, he would find her too.”

“Who?” I screamed.

“Leo,” Marcus said. “He’s alive, Gabe. And he’s the one who killed Daniel.”

The line went dead.

Gabriel stared at the phone, his chest rising and falling heavily.

“We need to leave,” Gabriel said, grabbing his keys.

But as we turned toward the front door, the heavy deadbolt clicked into place. The sound echoed loudly in the quiet house.

Someone had locked us in from the outside.

Gabriel pulled his gun and moved to the window. He peered through the blinds.

“My men are gone,” he said grimly.

I ran to the bedroom and scooped Lily into my arms. She woke up, rubbing her eyes.

“Mommy? Are we going home?”

“Soon, baby,” I whispered, holding her tight.

Gabriel moved down the hallway, checking the back door. Locked. He kicked it, but the reinforced steel didn’t budge.

“It’s a vault,” Gabriel realized, stepping back. “Daniel didn’t build this to hide. He built it as a panic room.”

I set Lily down and started searching the drawers in the kitchen. “If it’s a panic room, there has to be a way out. Or a weapon.”

I pulled open the bottom drawer of the oven. Instead of baking sheets, there was a heavy, dark canvas bag.

I pulled it out and unzipped it.

Inside was a man’s heavy winter coat. It was covered in dried, brown blood.

Gabriel walked over. He stared at the coat, recognizing it instantly.

“That was Daniel’s,” he whispered. “He was wearing it the night he died.”

I reached into the pocket of the coat. My fingers brushed against something hard and metallic.

I pulled it out.

It was a beautiful, tarnished silver rosary.

Gabriel stumbled backward, hitting the kitchen counter. He looked at the rosary as if it were a ghost.

“Where did you get that?” he choked out.

“It was in Daniel’s pocket,” I said. “Whose is it?”

Gabriel looked up at me, his eyes filled with a terrifying realization.

“It belongs to Vanessa.”

Share