Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT BENEATH THE FARMHOUSE
My mother did not hug me.
Perhaps she saw the fury on my face.
Perhaps twenty-seven years of absence created a distance neither of us knew how to cross.
Instead, she raised one finger to her lips and pointed down the tunnel.
The passage extended beneath the farmhouse toward an old storm shelter near the barn.
Dust drifted from the ceiling with every impact above us.
I heard Thomas fire again.
Then two rapid shots answered from outside.
“Evelyn is up there,” I whispered.
“She knows the escape route.”
“You left her.”
“She told me to wait for you.”
Her voice struck me harder than I expected.
It was older than the voice preserved in my childhood memories, but it had the same gentle rasp.
The same way of emphasizing the final word of each sentence.
The same voice that once read to me when I was sick.
The same voice I had spent decades trying not to forget.
“You knew I would be here?”
“We hoped Evelyn could get you away from them.”
“You could have come yourself.”
Pain crossed her face.
“This is not the place.”
“It’s the only place you’ve given me.”
Another blast shook the tunnel.
My mother gripped my wrist and pulled me forward.
We moved through the narrow passage until we reached a steel door.
Beyond it was a small underground room containing bottled water, medical supplies, radios, weapons, and shelves of documents.
A second tunnel led toward the tree line.
My mother locked the steel door behind us.
A radio crackled.
Evelyn’s voice came through.
“Three outside. One down. Thomas is hit.”
My mother grabbed the receiver.
“Can he move?”
“Barely.”
“I’m coming up.”
“No,” Evelyn said. “Get Emma out.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“That is exactly what you’re doing.”
Gunfire erupted through the radio.
Then static.
My mother closed her eyes for half a second.
When she opened them, she looked like someone who had survived by refusing to grieve until later.
She handed me a backpack.
“Follow the second tunnel.”
“No.”
“Emma.”
“I spent my whole life being told what was safest for me while everyone else kept secrets. I’m done obeying.”
Her jaw tightened.
For an instant, I saw myself in her.
“You haven’t changed,” she whispered.
“You don’t know whether I changed.”
The words wounded her.
I saw it happen.
I did not apologize.
There was no time.
A loud metallic удар sounded against the door behind us.
Someone had entered the first tunnel.
My mother turned off the light.
We stood in darkness.
Another удар came.
Then a man’s voice echoed through the passage.
“Laura.”
Kyle.
My entire body went rigid.
He had found us.
“I know you’re down there,” he called.
My mother motioned toward the second tunnel.
I refused to move.
Kyle struck the door again.
“Emma, sweetheart, this has gotten completely out of control.”
Sweetheart.
The familiar word sounded obscene now.
“I came to take you home.”
My mother silently removed the safety from her pistol.
Kyle continued.
“My brothers are scared. Claire is scared. Everyone thinks you’ve been kidnapped.”
I stepped closer to the door.
My mother grabbed my arm.
I pulled free.
“You left me at a gas station,” I shouted.
Silence followed.
Then Kyle laughed softly.
“It was a stupid prank.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
His tone hardened.
“Who has been filling your head with this nonsense?”
“My mother.”
For the first time, Kyle had no immediate response.
I felt a vicious satisfaction.
Then he said, “Laura is not your mother anymore.”
My mother flinched.
“What did your father do to her?” I asked.
“My father tried to protect our family from a thief.”
“A thief?”
“She stole records. Money. Identities. She caused people to die.”
My mother whispered, “He’s repeating Richard’s story.”
Kyle heard her.
“Tell Emma where you’ve been for twenty-seven years, Laura.”
He began pounding the door again.
“Tell her why you watched from a distance while her father drank himself to death.”
My mother’s face changed.
“What is he talking about?” I asked.
“Not now.”
“Tell her,” Kyle shouted. “Tell her you sent the pills.”
My breath stopped.
My father’s death.
The overdose.
My mother shook her head.
“He’s lying.”
“Am I?” Kyle called. “Who mailed Daniel Hale a bottle of medication three days before he died?”
My mother stepped backward.
“I sent him anxiety medicine because he had stopped sleeping.”
“You sent an unmarked bottle through a stranger,” Kyle said. “My father replaced the pills before they reached him.”
My mother covered her mouth.
I stared at her.
“You never knew?”
“No.”
She looked suddenly older.
“I thought your father died because he took too much. I thought I had caused it.”
“That guilt kept you hidden,” I said.
She nodded.
Kyle laughed behind the door.
“My father understood people. All he needed was one bottle and one grieving widow who already believed everything was her fault.”
The steel door bent inward near the lock.
We had minutes at most.
I grabbed the backpack.
“Where does the tunnel end?”
“Near the creek.”
“Then we go now.”
My mother hesitated.
“Evelyn and Thomas—”
“Will die if Kyle gets through that door. We need to draw him away.”
She studied me.
“What are you proposing?”
I held up the radio and pressed the transmit button.
“Kyle,” I said loudly, “I have the flash drive.”
The удар stopped.
“I copied everything from your computer.”
My mother’s eyes widened.
“You want it?” I continued. “Come and get it.”
I turned the radio to an open frequency, hoping Evelyn could hear.
Then my mother and I entered the second tunnel.
We moved quickly through packed earth.
Behind us, metal screamed as the first door finally broke.
Kyle entered the shelter.
“Emma!”
We reached a ladder leading to a camouflaged hatch.
My mother opened it slightly.
The creek lay beyond a row of cottonwood trees.
No one was visible.
We climbed out and ran.
Halfway to the water, headlights ignited near the barn.
A black SUV accelerated across the field toward us.
My mother shoved me behind a fallen tree.
The SUV stopped.
Mason stepped out holding a rifle.
He looked different from the laughing man at the truck window.
No smile.
No playful expression.
Only fear.
“Give us the drive,” he said.
My mother aimed her pistol.
“You’re becoming your father.”
Mason stared at her.
“You don’t know anything about him.”
“I know where he buried your sister.”
Mason’s face collapsed.
Kyle had once told me he and his brothers were the only Barrett children.
“What sister?” I asked.
Mason looked at Kyle, who emerged from the tunnel hatch behind us.
Kyle’s clothes were covered in dirt.
Blood marked one sleeve.
“Our sister died when we were children,” Kyle said.
My mother kept her weapon trained on Mason.
“No. Rebecca discovered what Richard was doing. Marlene helped him hide her.”
Mason shook his head violently.
“Rebecca ran away.”
“She was fifteen,” my mother said. “Richard caught her trying to call the police. He killed her in the towing yard.”
Kyle raised his handgun.
“Stop talking.”
My mother ignored him.
“Your mother watched.”
Mason turned toward his brother.
“You said Rebecca wrote the letter.”
“She did.”
“You said she hated us.”
“She did.”
“You said she left.”
Kyle stepped closer.
“Lower the rifle, Mason.”
My mother reached slowly into her jacket and removed a folded piece of paper.
“I found this in Richard’s files.”
She tossed it onto the ground.
Mason picked it up.
Even from several feet away, I saw the childish handwriting.
DEAR KYLE, DEREK, AND MASON.
IF DAD FINDS THIS, I DON’T KNOW WHAT HE’LL DO.
Mason read silently.
His rifle lowered.
Kyle fired.
The bullet struck Mason in the chest.
He fell without making a sound.
I screamed.
My mother returned fire.
Kyle ducked behind the SUV.
Then Thomas’s shotgun thundered from the barn.
Kyle ran toward the trees.
Evelyn appeared beside Thomas, supporting him with one arm.
Blood covered his shirt, but he was alive.
Mason lay on his back staring at the sky.
I dropped beside him.
Blood spread beneath his body.
His lips moved.
I leaned closer.
“Derek knows,” he whispered.
“Knows what?”
“Where they keep them.”
“Keep who?”
His hand closed around my wrist.
“The women.”
My skin turned cold.
“They’re not all dead.”
Mason coughed.
“Blackwater.”
“What is Blackwater?”
His eyes began to lose focus.
“The old clinic.”
Then he whispered one final sentence.
“Your mother wasn’t the only one who escaped.”
Mason died beside the creek as sirens approached from the highway.
Kyle disappeared into the trees.
The attackers who had surrounded the farmhouse fled.
Thomas survived.
Evelyn had been grazed by a bullet but remained conscious.
When deputies arrived, my mother vanished again.
She believed the local department was compromised.
Before leaving, she pressed Rebecca’s letter into my hand and told me to find Blackwater.
Then she looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“I am sorry I wasn’t brave enough to come home.”
I wanted to stop her.
I wanted to demand that she stay.
Instead, I watched her disappear into the darkness.
Just as I had watched Kyle’s truck disappear from the gas station.
Only this time, I knew I would follow.
Because the letter Mason died protecting contained a hand-drawn map.
At its center was an abandoned building labeled BLACKWATER WOMEN’S RECOVERY CENTER.
Beneath the drawing, Rebecca had written:
DAD SAYS DEAD WOMEN CAN’T TESTIFY.
May you like
BUT HE DOESN’T ALWAYS KILL THEM.
SOMETIMES HE GIVES THEM NEW NAMES.
