EPISODE 5 — THE WOMAN AT THE DOOR
We locked ourselves inside the hidden room.
The house was completely dark.
Someone was moving downstairs.
Glass crackled beneath their shoes.
Emma whispered:
“Who is that?”
Mom shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then a man’s voice came from downstairs.
“Lena!”
I recognized it immediately.
Richard.
“Lena, I know you’re here.”
Mom’s face became pale.
“How did he find us?”
I didn’t answer.
Richard continued.
“You don’t understand what your father was involved in.”
I stepped toward the door.
Mom grabbed me.
“No.”
“What if he knows you’re alive?”
“He already does.”
That frightened me more than anything.
We found the tunnel Dad had mentioned when I was a child.
It began beneath the basement.
A narrow passage led outside the property.
We escaped through it and drove to an old cabin Dad had once owned.
There, Mom finally told us the entire story.
Richard had been stealing money from Dad’s company for years.
Dad discovered the fraud.
He confronted Richard.
Richard threatened him.
Then Mom disappeared.
Dad continued collecting evidence.
But the stress destroyed his health.
“He knew Richard was responsible,” Mom said.
“Then why didn’t he go to the police?”
“Because the police weren’t clean.”
I looked at her.
“What do you mean?”
She looked toward the window.
“Somebody inside the department was helping him.”
Emma whispered:
“Who?”
Mom shook her head.
“We didn’t know.”
Then she reached into her bag.
She pulled out a small photograph.
It showed Richard standing beside a police officer.
The same officer who had investigated Mom’s disappearance twenty-two years ago.
I recognized him immediately.
Mom had spent years believing that man had tried to help her.
Instead, he had helped keep her disappearance a secret.
Then Mom said:
“Your father knew he was running out of time.”
She handed me another envelope.
Inside was a letter.
If Richard comes looking for you, do not trust anything he says.
The evidence is hidden where we first said goodbye.
I remembered.
The old train station.
That was where Dad had last seen Mom before she disappeared.
We had to go there.
But before we left, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“You should have left the past buried.”
The call ended.
Mom looked at me.
“It has begun.”
