The chair legs creaked so hard on the floor that I became afraid. Five years. For five years I thought my daughter was gone forever. For five years I cried into my pillow so my grandson wouldn’t hear it when he came to visit.
For five years I looked at old photos and whispered: “I missed you, darling.” And during that time, reports were written about pills, locks, and a cellar. I sank deeper and deeper.
Then I found a few photos: ugly, dark, and hastily taken. It seemed as if they had been taken secretly or in a hurry. The first showed a small, dark room with concrete walls. A narrow bed stood in a corner.
A lamp stood on the floor. A plastic tray on a chair. Nothing in that room resembled a human home. Pain gripped my chest.
I moved on to the next one. A woman was sitting on the bed, with a blanket over her shoulders. Her hair was longer than Janet’s. Her face was pale.
Her body looked thin, far too thin. Her eyes looked tired, lost, and anxious. But I recognized this face. A mother always recognizes it. “Janet,” I whispered. The word came out broken.
I touched the screen, as if I could touch his face through it. Tears blurred my vision. I blinked hard and looked at him again, terrified that the image would change in some way.
Nothing had changed. It was her. My daughter was alive. She was alive, she was not buried, not gone, she was alive and trapped somewhere in the darkness. Then a deep, terrifying voice escaped from my throat.
The kind of sound you make when grief and hope collide with such force that your heart cannot contain them both. I leaned forward and held the phone against my chest.
I don’t know how long I stood there like that: a minute, five minutes, maybe longer. The only thing I know is that when I finally looked up, the kitchen was still light and ordinary, and I hated it precisely because it was ordinary.
The sunlight on the floor looked terrible. The clean dishes looked terrible. Even the peaches Rayan had brought were still lying in their paper bags on my counter, like a cruel joke.
He came into my house smiling, knowing that my daughter was still alive. He was exactly where I was right now. He looked me straight in the eyes and lied to me. Suddenly, my grief turned into something much more intense.
Anger. No, it wasn’t anger. It was something bigger than anger. It was the kind of anger that arises when someone hurts your daughter and laughs about it.
I sat up and wiped my face. Think about it, I whispered to myself. Think about it. If I call the police immediately and they respond too slowly, Rayan Onda could be hiding somewhere else.
If I hadn’t done anything, Janet would have walked into the trap. Sian would have taken back her phone to see if I had read the messages. Everything could have gone wrong before she could get help. She needed someone she could trust, someone who was decisive, someone who believed in her.
I picked up my phone and called my younger brother, Sam. Sam Parker had been the most stubborn of the family since he was ten. He repaired cars, chopped wood, and wouldn’t let anyone force nonsensical ideas on him.
When Janet died, San was the only one who kept saying that something wasn’t right. He said that the story kept changing. He said that Rayan answered questions too easily. He said that Linda cried without real tears.
At that moment, I told her that the pain made her cautious. Now that she knew the pain had blinded her, she heard the second ringtone. Evie. My voice sounded weak.
Sam, that was all I said. His tone changed immediately. “What happened? Come here now!” I whispered. “Please,” he didn’t ask why. He wasted no time.
I’m on my way. After I hung up the phone, I locked the front door. Then I opened it again, because a closed door would look weird if Rayan came back. Then I hated myself for worrying about how weird it would look if my daughter was stuck somewhere underground.
While I waited, I kept checking my phone. Bank transfers were coming in for a Curtis Hal. They were reminders to collect the medication. Rayan had an appointment in his calendar for every Tuesday and Friday at 7:30 PM.
He said only one word. The blood froze in my veins. Then I found an answering machine. I hesitated for a moment before pressing play. My thumb lingered on the screen for a moment.
A part of me already knew that once I had heard that voice, I would never forget it.
