Chapter 4 - SARAH'S JOURNAL
We spent the rest of the night reading Sarah's journal.
Every page made the past darker.
Sarah had noticed the surveillance nearly a year before her death.
At first, she thought I had installed it.
Then she thought Daniel had.
Finally, she realized the system belonged to someone neither of us knew.
She had documented everything.
Dates.
License plates.
Names.
Times.
She had even drawn a map of the house.
The map showed spaces I had never known existed.
One passage connected the basement to the attic.
Another ran beneath the garage.
A third appeared to connect to the neighboring property.
I looked at Owen.
"Was this house built like this?"
"No."
"Then who built it?"
He studied the map.
"Someone with access to the original construction plans."
Mark sat across from us.
"Daniel?"
"Maybe."
I continued reading.
Sarah had written about Elias.
She described him as charming.
Helpful.
Professional.
She wrote that he always seemed to know when she was home.
Then she wrote something that made me stop.
Elias knows when I'm awake.
The sentence appeared three times.
Each time, the handwriting became more frantic.
The next entry described a meeting between Sarah and Daniel.
Daniel had told her that the house had been monitored for years.
He said it was not personal.
It was business.
Sarah had laughed at him.
She asked what kind of business required cameras in someone's bedroom.
Daniel never answered.
Instead, he told her to forget everything.
She refused.
Two weeks later, Sarah disappeared.
The official story said she had been killed in a car accident.
The accident occurred on a remote road.
The vehicle burned.
The identification was based on dental records.
I remembered the funeral.
I remembered the coffin.
I remembered Mark crying.
I remembered thinking the world had ended.
But now the story had holes.
Too many holes.
We contacted the hospital listed in Sarah's records.
The hospital had no complete file.
Several pages had been removed.
Owen contacted another facility.
Same problem.
Then he found something.
A private medical clinic in another state had treated a woman under an alias.
The woman had arrived with severe injuries.
The date was eight years ago.
The name was different.
But the physician's description matched Sarah.
Scar beneath the left eyebrow.
Old fracture in the right wrist.
Distinctive surgical mark.
Sarah.
Alive.
I couldn't breathe.
"Where is she now?"
The doctor refused to answer without a court order.
But he gave us one clue.
A photograph.
Sarah standing outside a small coastal house.
The photograph was three years old.
Mark stared at it.
"She knew."
"What?"
"She knew we were alive."
The thought hurt more than I expected.
If Sarah had been alive, why hadn't she come home?
Why hadn't she called?
Why had she allowed me to bury her?
Why had she let Mark grow up believing his mother was dead?
I was angry.
Then I was devastated.
Then I was angry again.
Owen noticed.
"Don't make decisions tonight."
I nodded.
But my mind had already made one.
I wanted to find her.
The next morning, we drove to the address.
The house was empty.
Neighbors said a woman had lived there.
She left months earlier.
One neighbor remembered her.
"Quiet woman."
"Did she have a family?"
The neighbor shook her head.
"She used to receive letters."
"From whom?"
"I don't know."
Then she paused.
"Actually, there was one man."
"What man?"
"Dark coat. Gray car."
"Elias?"
The neighbor looked frightened.
"Yes."
We returned home that evening.
The house felt different.
Someone had been inside.
A kitchen chair was moved.
A drawer was open.
A photograph was missing.
Sarah's photograph.
Mark stood in the hallway.
"He wants us to know he can get in."
Owen nodded.
"Exactly."
I looked at the journal.
One phrase kept returning to my mind.
Don't trust the person who tells you I died.
Who had told me?
The police.
The hospital.
Daniel.
And the doctor who signed the report.
I had trusted all of them.
Maybe that was the real mistake.
That night, another envelope appeared beneath my bedroom door.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
No handwriting.
Only typed words.
ASK DANIEL WHY YOUR FATHER PAID HIM.
I stared at the sentence.
My father had been dead for fifteen years.
Daniel had disappeared eight years ago.
And yet somehow, the secrets of both men had returned to my house.
May you like
The final line was even worse.
THE MAN IN THE WALLS IS NOT THE ONE WHO STARTED THIS.
