Chapter 3 - Three Knocks After Midnight
Nathaniel reached past me and opened the glass cabinet.
He removed the photograph with surprising care, holding it only by the edges.
"Who put this here?" he asked.
The teacher stiffened.
"Mr. Mercer, those photographs belong to the school."
"Who?"
His voice was louder this time.
Several children stopped walking.
I stepped forward.
"Nathaniel, you're frightening them."
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, he seemed to be struggling against something inside himself.
Then he returned the photograph.
"I'm sorry."
He looked at Emily.
"Go to class, sweetheart."
Emily glanced at me before obeying.
When she was gone, Nathaniel turned toward the teacher.
"Please remove that picture."
"Why?"
"Because it shouldn't exist."
He walked away.
I followed him into the parking lot.
"Nathaniel!"
He stopped beside an old black pickup truck.
"What happened to Evelyn?"
He didn't turn around.
"She died."
"The teacher said she disappeared."
"People say a lot of things."
"Was she your sister?"
Silence.
Then he opened the driver's door.
"Stay away from this, Rebecca."
"Goldie looks exactly like her."
His hand froze on the door handle.
I lowered my voice.
"Does Goldie know?"
He finally faced me.
"Goldie knows she's loved."
"That's not what I asked."
"It's the only answer that matters."
He climbed into the truck and drove away.
I stood there long after his taillights disappeared.
Something about his reaction troubled me more than the photograph itself.
Grief could explain a man preserving his sister's memory.
It couldn't explain why he was terrified of an old school picture.
That evening, I searched the county newspaper archives.
The first article appeared within minutes.
NINE-YEAR-OLD GIRL VANISHES AFTER AUTUMN FESTIVAL.
October 18, 2009.
Evelyn Mercer had disappeared from the grounds of Briarwood Elementary during a charity concert.
Witnesses reported seeing her near the auditorium exit shortly after seven thirty.
Her brother, Nathaniel, then twenty-one, had been helping backstage.
Their parents were already dead.
Evelyn had been living with Nathaniel for almost three years.
Police searched the surrounding woods.
Divers inspected a nearby reservoir.
Volunteers distributed thousands of photographs.
No body was ever recovered.
The article included a photograph of Evelyn smiling beside a birthday cake.
Her hair fell past her knees.
Beneath the image was a quote from Nathaniel.
I promised her I would keep her safe. I failed.
I read those words three times.
Then I found another article.
MERCER FAMILY REJECTS OFFICIAL ACCOUNT OF GIRL'S DISAPPEARANCE.
According to the report, investigators believed Evelyn had wandered into the woods and suffered an accident.
Nathaniel disagreed.
He insisted someone had taken her.
The police found no evidence supporting his claim.
The case went cold.
I clicked through the remaining articles until I reached one dated November 2009.
The headline made my stomach tighten.
MISSING CHILD'S HAIR FOUND INSIDE ABANDONED VEHICLE.
A long golden braid had been discovered in a stolen sedan thirty miles outside town.
DNA testing was inconclusive because the evidence had been contaminated.
The vehicle belonged to a woman named Dr. Miriam Vale.
A pediatric geneticist.
She had disappeared two weeks before Evelyn.
I searched her name.
Nothing recent appeared.
No death certificate.
No obituary.
No public record of her whereabouts.
I closed my laptop.
My daughter was asleep upstairs.
Outside, rain tapped against the kitchen window.
I told myself to leave the Mercer family alone.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
"Hello?"
For several seconds, there was only breathing.
Then a woman's voice whispered, "Did you find the photograph?"
My heart began pounding.
"Who is this?"
"Listen carefully. The child must not turn seventeen."
"What child?"
The voice cracked.
"Goldie."
I stood.
"Who are you?"
"Tell Nathaniel the counting has started again."
The line went dead.
I immediately called Nathaniel.
He answered on the fourth ring.
"What happened?"
I told him everything.
He didn't interrupt.
When I finished, he said, "Lock your doors."
"Nathaniel—"
"All of them."
"Who called me?"
"I don't know."
"You're lying."
A long silence followed.
Then I heard something in the background.
A child crying.
Goldie.
"Daddy," she whispered, "she's outside again."
Nathaniel's voice changed.
"Goldie, get away from the window."
A sharp sound followed.
Three knocks.
Slow.
Deliberate.
I heard Nathaniel inhale.
Then he whispered something I barely understood.
"Not tonight."
The phone disconnected.
I called back.
No answer.
I grabbed my coat and car keys.
I should have called the police.
Instead, I drove toward the Mercer house.
Nathaniel lived outside town, near the abandoned railway crossing. His property sat behind a row of enormous oak trees, with a workshop attached to the garage.
When I arrived, every downstairs light was on.
The front door stood open.
My stomach dropped.
I ran up the porch steps.
"Nathaniel?"
No answer.
Inside, the house smelled of coffee, sawdust, and something floral.
Lavender.
There were framed photographs of Goldie everywhere.
Goldie at the beach.
Goldie on her first day of school.
Goldie asleep on Nathaniel's chest.
But I saw no photographs of her mother.
Then I heard a sound upstairs.
A man's voice.
Soft.
Broken.
"Please. Not her."
I climbed the stairs.
At the end of the hallway, Nathaniel knelt beside Goldie's bedroom door.
His daughter stood behind him.
Both were staring at something on the floor.
A white envelope.
Nathaniel picked it up.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
I saw it over his shoulder.
A woman with long golden hair stood in front of a hospital window.
She held a newborn baby.
On the back, someone had written:
YOU HAVE EIGHT YEARS LEFT.
Goldie looked at her father.
"Daddy?"
He couldn't answer.
She pointed toward the photograph.
"That's Mommy."
May you like
Then she said something that made Nathaniel stumble backward.
"She came into my room last night."
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