Part 4 — I discovered the trap Charlotte had set against Drew, but after my warning her face suddenly turned pale

Mark let the phone fall from his hand, but Drew quickly bent down and caught it before it hit the floor.

“How much time do we have?” I asked.

“Twelve minutes,” Mark replied.

Charlotte looked toward the door.

“You did not understand me. There is not only gas there.”

“What else is there?” Drew asked.

“An electrical amplifier. If the timer starts, the entire warehouse will explode.”

Strangely, I felt calm. I was still afraid, but I already knew that escaping would no longer be enough.

“Mark, call the fire department.”

“I am already calling.”

“And the police too,” I added.

Charlotte turned her head toward me.

“Carly, you can help me.”

“No.”

“You do not know what you are doing. If I am arrested, everything will fall on you too.”

“You put everything on me yourself when you set a trap against Drew.”

She took one step toward me.

“Give me the phone.”

“No.”

“Delete the recording and I swear, everything will end.”

“The time when I was trying to save you has already ended.”

It was the first time I had said these words to her.

And for the first time, I did not feel guilty.

Police sirens sounded in the distance. Charlotte ran to the window, but red and white lights were already flashing in the yard. Two officers appeared in the doorway, holding their weapons pointed downward.

“Charlotte, raise your hands where we can see them,” one of them said.

“This is a misunderstanding!”

“Hands!”

She slowly raised her hands.

I stood to the side and felt my fingers trembling. The recording turned on in the phone was still saving her voice.

Her lawyer called twenty minutes later. He told Mark that Charlotte was only a witness and that all responsibility should be shifted onto a technical error.

“You are her lawyer,” I told him when he was holding the phone. “But I have already sent the recording to the prosecutor.”

There was silence on the other side for several seconds.

“Madam, perhaps we can find an agreement.”

“No.”

“You too may be charged with interference.”

“Then let them charge me with saving a person.”

The lawyer ended the call.

In the morning, at the police station, Charlotte was taken into a room where a small speaker stood for listening to the recording. I stood behind the glass. Mark, Drew, and the investigator sat in the room.

Charlotte’s voice sounded from the speaker.

“Tomorrow morning everyone will think that Drew stole the medicines. If he resists us, we will release gas in the warehouse and present everything as an accident.”

Charlotte lowered her head.

“That is not my voice,” she said.

The investigator played the recording from the beginning.

“It is your voice. The examination has already confirmed it.”

“Carly is setting this up against me.”

I entered the room.

“If I could have set this up against you, I would have left you silently in the warehouse that night.”

Charlotte looked into my eyes.

“Why did you not help me?”

“Because you did not want help. You wanted someone else to bear the consequences of your actions.”

She had no answer anymore.

Three days later, I had to return to the warehouse. The police had declared the area safe. A black mark could still be seen on the floor where the device had stood. Drew’s jacket hung beside the wall. In its pocket I found my small copper key—it had apparently fallen there on the night when I was trying to escape.

I took the key in my hand and looked at the crescent-shaped scratch for a long time.

I had carried that object with me for years, but for the first time I understood what it meant to me. The door was not the main thing. The main thing was that in the end I myself decided which door I would never open again.

Several weeks later, the clinic offered me the position of head of the security department. I did not refuse. I began work at six in the morning, checked the camera recordings, and taught the employees not to believe beautiful lies.

Drew often came with coffee. He always brought two—one for me, the other for himself.

“Are you still afraid?” he asked once.

We were sitting in the clinic yard. It was the first warm day of April.

“Sometimes.”

“And you continue anyway?”

“Now I know that the existence of fear does not mean that you have to stop.”

He smiled.

“You should tell that to your child.”

When I came home that evening, my little daughter, Nina, was sitting on the kitchen floor. She was drawing a picture with colored pencils. In the picture there was a large house, and beside it a small door with a moon-shaped handle.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Our new house,” she answered. “Here every door opens only when we want it to.”

I sat down beside her.

“It is a very good house.”

“You will not leave anymore, will you?”

This question struck me more strongly than any word I had heard at the police station.

“No, Nina. I am home now.”

Two months later, I received a letter from Charlotte. Her lawyer sent it to me. It was short.

“I want to talk to you. I saw everything differently. If you come even once, I will explain it to you.”

I put the letter on the kitchen table. It did not take me long to answer.

“I no longer expect an explanation. Your choice already has its consequence. I chose my life.”

I folded the letter and put it in the trash bin.

I did not feel revenge.

Only peace.

That same evening, Nina’s bicycle lock broke. I took the small copper key and opened the old toolbox. The crescent-shaped scratch glittered in the lamplight.

Nina asked me:

“What does this key open?”

I took her by the hand and led her to the window. It was beginning to rain outside, but this time its sound no longer resembled a threat at the door.

“The door that you choose yourself.”

Nina smiled.

I placed the key in her hand.

And for the first time, I opened the door without fear.