Part 4 — They stopped us for speeding, but the policeman looked at my wife and then quietly asked me to get out of the car — his face went pale

At Mercer’s last words, the door opened and two armed officers entered. The ordinary working calm was no longer on their faces.

“Teams have been positioned around the house,” one said. “But entering is not yet possible.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The gas detectors showed an unstable reading.”

Mercer took the photograph in his hand again.

“Who is the second person?” I asked.

He waited several seconds before answering.

“Rebecca could not have installed such a system alone. She has no technical knowledge.”

“Then who is helping her?”

Mercer enlarged the photograph. A half-reflected face appeared on the window glass. A man whom I had not recognized before, but whose name I remembered immediately.

“Daniel Hart,” he said. “Emily’s father.”

“Wasn’t he thought to have died fifteen years ago?”

“Everyone thought so, except Margaret.”

The telephone rang again. This time it was not Rebecca.

“Nathan,” the man said. “If you want anyone to survive today, tell the police to withdraw.”

“Daniel Hart?”

Silence descended on the other side of the line.

“Do not use that name anymore.”

“Did you take my wife away as a child?”

“I saved my daughter.”

Mercer quickly recorded the voice. I thought that sometimes horror speaks in the calmest tone.

“Where is Rebecca?” I asked.

“In your house.”

“Margaret too?”

“She was always where she was not needed.”

Mercer signaled to the officer to continue the conversation. At the same time, the police team requested the plan of the old sewer tunnel. Daniel seemed not to notice anything.

“Nathan, choose. Do you want your wife or the truth?”

“I do not want to kill either person.”

“That choice is no longer yours.”

The line went dead.

Mercer turned off the recorder.

“Now he is sure that you are afraid. That is exactly why he will make a mistake.”

“Where?”

“Not at the house. In Margaret’s old greenhouse.”

Behind Margaret’s house there was an abandoned greenhouse. As a child, Rebecca told me never to enter it because the roof might collapse. Mercer spread out the old plan and showed me an underground passage hidden in one corner.

“Daniel once worked at this house,” he said. “Perhaps he made the escape route himself.”

We entered the greenhouse at night. The smell of damp earth and the crunch of broken glass blended together in the darkness. I held only a small flashlight.

The underground door was open.

We went down.

In the first room Margaret was sitting on a chair, her wrists tied with rope. Blood had dried beside her lip.

“Nathan, you should not have come,” she said.

“Where is Rebecca?”

“At your house.”

“Daniel?”

Margaret lowered her eyes.

“Where his daughter should be.”

Mercer cut the rope.

“Tell me everything.”

Margaret barely exhaled.

“Daniel took Emily when she was fifteen. He told her that her mother was planning to abandon her. Then he took her to another city, changed her name, and controlled her for years.”

“When did Rebecca learn the truth?”

“Three years ago. Daniel returned. He told her that if she went against him, he would kill me.”

“Is that why she married me?”

Margaret began to cry.

“Not at first. At first she truly loved you. But Daniel accumulated a debt, demanded money, and finally forced her into the plan.”

Mercer asked sternly:

“Why did you not come to the police?”

“I was afraid.”

“And now?”

Margaret looked toward me.

“Now it is already too late for fear to save anyone.”

At that moment a voice sounded over the radio.

“The team has entered the house. A suspicious device has been found, but the timer is working.”

Mercer turned around instantly.

“Nathan, stay here.”

“No.”

“That is an order.”

“My wife is there.”

“And your going there may be part of her plan.”

Margaret grabbed my hand.

“If you see Rebecca, tell her that her father is not planning to bring her back. He is only trying to save himself.”

When we reached the house, the yard was already surrounded by police. Pale smoke came from the windows. Rebecca stood in front of the house with her hands raised, while Daniel stood behind her with a pistol.

“Do not take another step!” he shouted.

Rebecca looked toward me.

“Nathan, go away.”

“Rebecca, look at me.”

“Go!”

“You will not do this.”

“I already have.”

Daniel began to laugh.

“He was always so naive. That is why we easily made him believe everything.”

Rebecca tried to turn toward him.

“You told me we would only frighten him.”

“I told you many things.”

For the first time real fear appeared on her face.

“You want to kill me.”

“You know too much.”

The recorder captured these words immediately. The special forces acted at that moment. Daniel’s weapon fell from his hand, Rebecca fell to the ground, and the police arrested both of them within a few seconds.

The device found in the house stopped working twenty-nine seconds before the explosion. A second device was found in Margaret’s room. The third was in the car Rebecca had driven to work throughout the year.

But the hardest moment came later.

In the police room they played Daniel the audio recording. His own voice could be heard there.

“My daughter will be free only when Nathan is dead.”

Daniel raised his head.

“This has been edited.”

Mercer played the second recording.

“Rebecca, if you talk to the police, I will shoot Margaret.”

This time Daniel said no more.

For the first time he heard his own words the way others heard them.

Rebecca was sitting in a separate room. When I entered to see her, a small plastic bag lay on the table. Inside was the copper elephant-shaped pendant.

“I’ve had this since childhood,” she said.

“I know.”

“Father told me that your mother gave it to me.”

“Margaret said Daniel took you away.”

Rebecca looked at the pendant.

“Perhaps both are true. Perhaps neither is.”

For the first time there was no command, coldness, or play in her voice. Only exhaustion remained.

“Did you really love me?” I asked.

She lowered her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Then why?”

“Because I thought fear was stronger than love.”

I could not answer.

Daniel was sentenced to many years in prison for kidnapping, threats, extortion, and attempted murder. Rebecca confessed to the crime and, in exchange for her testimony, received a reduced sentence, but she still lost her freedom for several years. Margaret testified and received a suspended sentence for concealing the crime.

I filed for divorce.

Not because I no longer cared about her pain. Because in the end I also had to take hold of my own life.

I sold the house.

I took her picture down from the bedroom wall, but for a long time I could not decide where to put it. In the end I placed it in the drawer, in the same place where I had kept her secrets for years.

The room remained empty.

An empty room speaks more loudly than any confession.

Three months later I moved to a small town. I started working at a library. In the mornings I opened the windows and arranged the books, and in the evenings I went by bicycle to the riverside.

The first snow came in November.

My sister, Elena, visited me on the weekend with her son. The boy spread a sheet of paper on the floor and drew a house. Smoke was rising from the roof, and a small figure stood by the door.

“Who is this?” I asked.

“You,” he answered. “When you come home.”

I looked at the drawing for a long time.

For the first time, returning home no longer meant the door where Rebecca was waiting for me. It meant a place where no one forced me to apologize for my own intuition.

Six months later I received a letter from Rebecca. My new address was written on the envelope. Inside were only two sheets of paper.

“Nathan, I know you do not deserve an answer. But if you ever can, I want to explain how I became who I became.”

On the second page was one sentence:

“Could you ever speak to me again?”

I put the letter on the kitchen table. I did not touch it all evening.

Then I wrote a reply.

“I have already heard your truth. Now I have to listen to my life.”

I added nothing else.

I sent the letter by mail.

That night I stood by the library window. Outside, snow was falling silently on the street. I put my hand into my pocket and touched the small copper pendant.

The police had left it for me because Rebecca said she no longer wanted to see it.

At first I could not touch it.

Then I realized that the object belonged neither to the crime nor to love. It was simply a small thing left from the past, to which I gave meaning.

I opened the window.

Cold air entered the room.

I hung the pendant beside the door, where the first ray fell in the morning.

This time the past did not open the door for me.

I closed it myself.