I understood that this was what we both feared. Not the scent of the chemicals, a burn that would scar but eventually heal. We feared the thing that could erase all evidence that we had ever existed. We feared that the people we were had never been real. That we would be reduced to nothing more than a story.
Nothing inside was quite as I’d left it. The police must’ve been through all of our things, searching for evidence that my mother was not who she claimed to be, that she was someone other than the person I’d known my entire life. I heard Detective Conrad’s voice in my ear, saw the house as he might instead: cameras to see if the police were coming; a go-bag with stolen money and forged passports to take as we ran; an alarm system that told us someone was near, but did not call for help; walls and gates, marble and steel—all to hide behind.
I had been taught the protocol. If the alarm sounds, get into the safe room. But now I wondered whether it was supposed to keep me safe, or whether it was supposed to be the start of an escape. And I wanted to know exactly what we were trying to get away from.
And yet, when it came down to it, my mother had not followed protocol at all. I imagined what must’ve happened that night: It’s nighttime, and the gates are locked. The lights are on, the alarm is armed. There’s a noise at the back gate, men in hoods trying to force entry. She picks up the phone, but the line is dead. She runs to my room, but it’s empty. She notices the open window, pushes at the grate. She sees my phone, but I am gone. Maybe she tries to make a call with it, but it won’t go through.
She was supposed to get to the safe room, but she hadn’t. Instead, she disarmed the alarm and pressed the button opening the gate….
And suddenly, I got a glimpse of someone new. Her, but not her. Your mother is very strong. She’s capable of more, Jan had said. I had seen glimpses of this person before: the little lies she told for our protection, the moment when social services came to take me away and she froze, wavering. I saw the moment in a new light: the decision to run or stay. Escape, or take the risk.
She let them take me not because she saw no other choice, but because this was the choice. The long game. The risk that she would get me back.
Or this: That I would make my way back to her.
And I did. Over and over, I did.
The stories I told to, and kept from, Jan. Hanging from the car, with nothing but the strength in my fingers and some hope.
My mother knew. She knew I’d find my way back to her. I always did.
I started rummaging through drawers, tearing through her things. She had to have left me something here. She had to have left me a way.
I checked her bedroom, the bathroom, the bedside table. I ran my fingers between the mattress and box spring. But there was no place to hide.
I went to her office, where she spent most of her time—but her computer was missing. My heart sank as I imagined the police digging through her history instead, looking for the wrong thing. Her emails, her searches, the things she feared…All those times she’d read up on stories of missing children, acts of violence—I wondered if all along, she’d been looking for them.
I opened her filing cabinet, thumbed through her labeled folders, each of her clients in alphabetical order. From the haphazard way they were lined up, I knew the police had been through here, too.
Where, Mom? Hidden. It would have to be hidden. There was no rug to peel back, or ceiling tiles to remove. I ran my fingers over her desk, looking for hidden compartments—but nothing. Only the walls remained. I took our pictures off the hooks, but the wall was smooth behind them. Even the finger-painting artwork, which had been here forever, for reasons I could never understand, in a frame too big for its paper.
My fingers tingled as I held the shadow box in my hand. I shook it gently, heard a faint rattling inside. I dropped to my knees, pried open the back, and saw a small piece of paper, folded over and yellowing at the edges.
I flattened it against the floor. It was a car registration. For the state of Georgia, issued eighteen years earlier, and held in the name of a man I’d never heard of before: Samuel Lyter.
And there was an address.
I stood, tucking the paper into my back pocket, my hands shaking, my entire body on edge. The name, and all it might represent. The man she had escaped. A name to the nightmare. But a name my mother had always known.
Why had she kept this, if not for me? Trace back my blood, trace it to him. Trace it to her, right now. In case of emergency, I could find her.
I’d take this to the police, and we’d have a lead. I could give them a name and the car registration, see the face pulled up with the driver’s license, tell them if it was a match to the man I’d seen in my house.
I could bring the shadows to life.
I stood too fast, my mind spinning—and I heard it. A muffled voice, a shuffling of steps, a pause. I pulled my phone out, held it in my shaking hand, quickly dialed 911 and waited for it to connect.
No service.
My stomach dropped. Everything within me went on high alert. Goose bumps rising to the surface of my skin, a slow sickness making its way through my stomach, my vision narrowing to a point.
Fight or flight, Kelsey.
The sound was coming from the front, but the back door was within range. I could make it. Maybe run straight for the wall, maybe make it over before anyone saw. Maybe make it back to Cole’s car and out of the development, to where I had a signal. And maybe then the police would get here in time.
But then I heard something higher, more familiar. Not words, not anything so clear. But a voice that I knew. My mother. My mother was on the other side of that door, and I had found her.
I crept behind the open office door, trying to make myself small. Heard the front door creak open, the footsteps in the foyer, a grunt. My shoulders tensed as I imagined all the possible things that could be happening on the other side of the wall: my mother, forced inside the house, being hurt, being terrified.
Careful.
I held my breath, held my body perfectly still.
“Show us, Amanda.” It was the voice from the walkie-talkie, now too personal, too close. I pictured the down-turned mouth that had begun to say my name. And the name on the car registration in my back pocket. Samuel.
But then, a second voice. “Make it quick.” Not the voice of someone my age, not Eli—someone older.
“Relax, Martin. The kid’s keeping watch.”
So, there were three. Martin. Samuel. Eli outside somewhere, watching.
“The basement,” my mother said. The breath rushed from me at the sound of her voice. Just a few steps away. So close I could reach through the wall and touch her.
I heard them moving down the hall, the familiar sound of the basement door opening, my mother’s voice pleading “Don’t”—and then a door swinging closed.
The person I knew was real—the one who could not manage the thought of being trapped inside a basement with these men. No matter what the police said, she was real.
I eased out from my hiding spot behind the door and tiptoed toward the top of the stairs, just to listen. I pressed my ear to the closed wooden door.
Voices came through in snippets—“No,” “Here,” “I didn’t”—half of it lost to the dark. But then I got some clarity. They must’ve been standing right at the base of the steps now.
“She told us she buried it. What the hell are we even listening to her for?” That was the more unfamiliar voice. Martin, I assumed.
“I did,” my mom said. “But then I went back for it.”
“You’re getting sloppy with your lies, Amanda,” Samuel said.
“Listen, Samuel, please. She doesn’t know. Call off the kid.”
The hairs raised on the back of my neck. Me. They were talking about me.
“She doesn’t know what?” Samuel asked.
“Anything. She can’t hurt you. She doesn’t even know who you are. I’ll give you anything. Anything you want. Just. Don’t do this.”
His voice rose. “How could you possibly give me what I want now?”
“I’ll get you the money—”