PART 2
My trembling fingers almost dropped the phone before I managed to press the call button.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“My grandson,” I gasped. “He’s locked inside a basement. He’s alive, but he sounds weak. Please—send someone now.”
The dispatcher immediately asked for the address.
I gave it to her, my eyes fixed on the heavy padlock.
“Sir, officers and paramedics are on the way. Do not enter the basement if you believe someone dangerous may still be inside the house.”
“I’m not leaving him down there.”
“Sir, please listen—”
I ended the call.
Maybe that was foolish.
Maybe it was dangerous.
But I had already lost my son.
I was not going to stand safely in a hallway while his child begged me for help from behind a locked door.
“Leo!” I shouted. “I’m still here. I’m getting you out.”
For several seconds, there was no response.
Then I heard his weak voice.
“Hurry, Grandpa.”
I ran outside toward my son’s old Chevy pickup. The driver’s door was unlocked, just as he had always left it when the truck was parked at home.
Behind the seat, I found the metal tire iron he had carried for years.
Holding it brought back an image of my son kneeling beside that same truck, showing Leo how to change a tire.
Leo had been only seven then.
He had stood beside his father with a serious expression, gripping a wrench that was almost too heavy for him.
“Someday,” my son had said, smiling at me, “this boy is going to take care of both of us.”
The memory nearly broke me.
I tightened my grip around the tire iron and hurried back inside.
The first strike barely scratched the padlock.
The second sent pain shooting through my wrists.
On the third strike, the wooden frame cracked.
“Grandpa?” Leo called.
“I’m here!”
I struck it again.
The screws holding the metal latch began pulling free from the wood.
Again.
Again.
Finally, the entire latch tore away from the frame.
The basement door swung inward.
A nauseating wave of heat and decay struck me so hard that I staggered backward.
The smell came from spoiled food, a filthy plastic bucket and damp clothing piled against the concrete wall.
A single bare bulb glowed at the bottom of the stairs.
“Leo?”
I descended slowly, using the wall to steady myself.
The basement was much larger than I remembered.
Shelves had been placed along both sides, filled with cardboard boxes and black plastic containers. Several extension cords ran across the floor toward a table covered with computer equipment.
Then I saw the camera.
It was mounted near the ceiling, pointed directly toward the far corner of the basement.
Toward Leo.
He was lying on a thin mattress beside the furnace.
His face was pale.
His lips were cracked.
One of his ankles was secured to a metal pipe with a short chain and a small lock.
For one terrible second, I could not move.
The little boy who had once raced across my yard with a soccer ball now looked too weak even to lift his head.
“Grandpa,” he whispered.
I dropped the tire iron and fell to my knees beside him.
“I’m here, son.”
I pulled him gently into my arms.
His body felt frighteningly light.
He buried his face against my chest and began to cry.
I held him as tightly as I dared.
“I knew you would come,” he sobbed. “Mom said you would know something was wrong.”
“Where is your mother?”
His body immediately stiffened.
“Thomas took her.”
“Took her where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Leo, when did this happen?”
He swallowed painfully.
“Three weeks ago.”
My stomach twisted.
Emily had not been answering my calls and pretending Leo was busy.
But if she had been taken three weeks ago, then someone else had been sending those messages.
Someone had been imitating her.
“Why did Thomas lock you down here?”
Leo looked toward the camera.
“Because I saw what was on Dad’s phone.”
I stared at him.
“Your father’s phone?”
Leo nodded.
“I found it inside the old truck. Mom said she thought it had disappeared after Dad died, but it was hidden underneath the passenger seat.”
My son had died four years earlier after his car went off a rain-soaked road.
The police had called it an accident.
There had been no witnesses.
No other vehicle had ever been found.
“What was on the phone?” I asked.
“A video.”
Before Leo could say more, headlights swept across the narrow basement window.
A vehicle had pulled into the driveway.
Leo’s eyes widened in terror.
“He’s back.”
The front door slammed upstairs.
Heavy footsteps entered the house.
Then a man’s voice called out.
“Emily?”
It was Thomas.
Leo grabbed my jacket.
“Don’t let him take me again.”
“I won’t.”
I picked up the tire iron and positioned myself at the bottom of the stairs.
The footsteps stopped near the broken basement door.
For several seconds, the house became completely silent.
Then Thomas appeared at the top of the staircase.
He was wearing a dark jacket and work boots. His eyes moved from the broken lock to the tire iron in my hands.
Then he looked past me and saw Leo sitting on the mattress.
His expression changed.
Not into fear.
Into anger.
“What are you doing in my house?” he asked.
“What did you do to my grandson?”
Thomas slowly descended one step.
“Put that thing down before you hurt yourself.”
“Where is Emily?”
“She left.”
“Leo says you took her.”
“He’s confused. He’s been having problems.”
“You chained him to a pipe.”
Thomas glanced at the chain as if it were something completely ordinary.
“He kept trying to run away.”
“He’s a child!”
“He saw something he wasn’t supposed to see.”
The words left his mouth before he could stop them.
His jaw tightened.
I lifted the tire iron.
“What did he see?”
Thomas took another step.
“You should have stayed home.”
A siren sounded in the distance.
Thomas froze.
Another siren joined it.
Then another.
For the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.
“You called the police?”
“I called everyone.”
Thomas spun around and ran toward the kitchen.
I heard drawers being pulled open and objects crashing to the floor.
“He keeps a gun above the refrigerator,” Leo whispered.
My blood went cold.
“Stay behind the furnace.”
I started up the stairs, but before I reached the top, the front door burst open.
“Sheriff’s department!”
A uniformed officer entered with his weapon drawn.
Thomas immediately raised his hands.
The officer looked to be in his late forties, with closely cropped gray hair and a name stitched above his pocket.
NOLAN.
“Put the gun down, Thomas,” Deputy Nolan ordered.
Thomas had been holding a revolver near his leg.
He slowly placed it on the floor.
“Thank God you’re here,” Thomas said. “This old man broke into my house and attacked me.”
Nolan looked toward me.
“Drop the tire iron.”
“My grandson is chained in the basement.”
“I said drop it!”
Something about his voice bothered me.
He had not looked surprised when Thomas addressed him by name.
He had not asked who Thomas was.
He had not even looked toward the basement after hearing that a child was trapped below.
I placed the tire iron on the floor but kept my eyes on him.
More sirens stopped outside.
Two Portland police officers entered, followed by paramedics.
Only then did Deputy Nolan move toward Thomas.
He handcuffed him slowly.
Almost reluctantly.
The paramedics rushed downstairs and began examining Leo. They gave him oxygen, covered him with a blanket and started an intravenous drip.
One of them carefully cut the chain away from the pipe.
As they lifted Leo onto a stretcher, he reached for my hand.
“The phone,” he whispered.
“What phone?”
“Dad’s phone. Mom hid it again before Thomas caught her.”
“Where?”
Leo looked toward the basement ceiling.
“In the truck.”
Deputy Nolan had been standing near the staircase.
His head turned sharply.
“What did the boy say?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
Nolan stepped closer.
“I heard him mention the truck.”
Thomas suddenly began struggling against his handcuffs.
“Don’t listen to the kid!” he shouted. “He lies about everything!”
One of the Portland officers pushed Thomas against the wall.
“Be quiet.”
But Deputy Nolan was already moving toward the front door.
Toward my son’s Chevy.
I followed him outside.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m securing the vehicle.”
“You don’t even know what’s inside it.”
Nolan stopped.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he forced a smile.
“Sir, you’ve had a traumatic afternoon. Go with your grandson. We’ll handle everything from here.”
Before I could respond, Leo cried out from the doorway.
“Grandpa, don’t let him take it!”
Everyone turned.
Leo was sitting upright on the stretcher, pointing directly at Deputy Nolan.
“Mom said not to trust that man!”
The smile disappeared from Nolan’s face.
The two Portland officers exchanged a glance.
One of them stepped forward.
“Deputy, move away from the truck.”
Nolan’s right hand hovered near his belt.
“I’m the senior officer on this scene.”
“You’re outside your jurisdiction. Step away.”
Thomas began laughing.
It was a low, disturbing laugh.
“You’re all too late,” he said.
One of the officers searched his jacket and removed a phone.
At that exact moment, the screen lit up.
An incoming call.
The name displayed across it made my heart stop.
EMILY.
“Answer it!” I shouted.
The officer accepted the call and turned on the speaker.
“Emily?” I said. “Emily, can you hear me?”
For several seconds, there was only static.
Then a frightened woman’s voice came through.
“Dad?”
My knees nearly gave way.
“I’m here. We found Leo. Where are you?”
“Oh, thank God.”
She began crying.
“Emily, tell us where you are.”
“I can’t. They’ll hear me.”
“Who will hear you?”
“Thomas wasn’t working alone.”
Everyone became silent.
Emily’s breathing grew faster.
“Dad, listen carefully. Find Daniel’s black phone. Everything is on it. The video, the payments, the night of the crash—everything.”
The night of the crash.
My son’s crash.
I slowly looked toward Thomas.
He was no longer laughing.
“Emily,” I whispered, “are you saying Daniel’s death wasn’t an accident?”
Before she could answer, a loud sound came from her side of the call.
A door opening.
Emily gasped.
“I have to go.”
“Wait! Who helped Thomas?”
Her voice dropped to a desperate whisper.
“The deputy.”
My eyes moved toward Nolan.
He was staring at the phone.
“Which deputy?” the Portland officer demanded.
Emily began to cry harder.
“The one standing beside my father.”
The call suddenly disconnected.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Then Deputy Nolan’s hand dropped toward his holster.
And I finally understood why Thomas had not looked afraid when the police arrived………….
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
