Chapter 3 - The Man My Parents FearedThe footsteps above us were too calm to belong to someone running from police.
That was my first thought.
My second was that I had made a terrible mistake by leaving Rebecca upstairs.
I stood.
Dad grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t go.”
“Police are coming.”
“That isn’t the police.”
A floorboard creaked overhead.
Then a man called my sister’s name.
“Rebecca?”
His voice was warm.
Familiar.
Not to me.
To my parents.
Mom clutched Dad’s blanket.
“Oh, God.”
I whispered, “Who is he?”
Dad swallowed.
“Martin Vale.”
The name meant nothing.
“He’s Rebecca’s business partner,” Mom said.
Dad shook his head.
“He’s a thief.”
Above us, Rebecca said something too softly for me to understand.
Martin replied, “Where is he?”
I moved toward the stairs.
Dad caught my jacket.
“Ethan, please.”
I looked at my parents.
Their condition was worse than I’d realized.
Dad’s lips were cracked. His cheek was bruised yellow and purple. Mom’s wrists were red where something had rubbed against them.
There was a portable heater in the corner, unplugged.
Two bottles of water.
A bucket.
This had not happened hours ago.
“How long have you been down here?”
Mom’s eyes lowered.
“Four days.”
My blood went cold.
Four days.
Rebecca had been walking above them for four days.
Eating.
Sleeping.
Decorating the house.
While our parents were locked beneath the floor.
I climbed.
Rebecca was standing in the kitchen.
Beside her was a man in his late fifties wearing an expensive charcoal coat. Silver hair. Perfectly polished shoes despite the snow outside.
He looked like someone arriving for a board meeting.
Not someone connected to two elderly people imprisoned beneath a kitchen.
He smiled when I appeared.
“Ethan Walker.”
“You must be Martin.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“So your father has been talking.”
I stepped fully into the kitchen.
“Police are coming.”
“I doubt that.”
He looked toward the broken electronic device.
His smile disappeared.
“Cal was supposed to deal with that.”
“He dealt with my forehead.”
Martin glanced at Rebecca.
“You let him call?”
“I couldn’t stop him.”
He sighed.
Not panicked.
Annoyed.
Like she had forgotten to cancel a reservation.
Then he looked at me.
“We need to have a conversation.”
“No, we need to wait for the police.”
“The police are going to complicate things.”
“That’s the idea.”
He reached into his coat.
I was ready this time.
But he removed a folder.
He placed it on the table.
“Your parents signed documents transferring this property and several associated assets to your sister.”
I laughed once.
“You locked them in a cellar to convince them?”
“They entered that space voluntarily during an argument.”
“You put a padlock on the door.”
“Rebecca panicked.”
My sister whispered, “Martin…”
He ignored her.
“You have been absent from this family for twelve years, Ethan. Before you decide who the villains are, perhaps you should understand the situation.”
“I understand enough.”
“Do you?”
He opened the folder.
Inside were copies of bank statements.
Mortgage documents.
Property deeds.
My parents’ names appeared everywhere.
So did Rebecca’s.
And mine.
I stopped.
My company’s name was printed on one page.
Walker Freight Solutions.
“What is that?”
Martin tapped the document.
“A loan guarantee.”
“I never signed that.”
“No. Your father did.”
I picked it up.
Five years earlier, apparently, Dad had borrowed against the house.
Then again against a small commercial parcel behind town.
Then again.
According to the paperwork, the money had gone into my business.
It hadn’t.
I knew every dollar ever invested in my company.
Dad had once loaned me $8,000 when I bought my first truck.
I repaid him within a year.
That was it.
“This is fake.”
Martin smiled.
“Prove it.”
I looked at Dad’s signature.
Close.
Very close.
But wrong.
The W angled differently.
I had seen my father sign birthday cards for thirty-five years.
“That isn’t his signature.”
Rebecca began crying.
“Stop, Martin.”
He turned to her.
“You wanted a solution.”
“Not this.”
“You wanted the debts gone.”
“What debts?” I asked.
Rebecca looked at the floor.
Martin answered for her.
“Your sister made some bad investments.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough.”
I stared at Rebecca.
She had always been impulsive. Even as a teenager, money disappeared through her fingers.
But holding our parents captive?
Forgery?
None of that made sense.
“You did all this for money?”
Rebecca looked up.
“No.”
“Then why?”
Before she answered, sirens sounded in the distance.
Martin finally showed emotion.
He looked toward the window.
Then at Rebecca.
“You said Cal handled the dispatcher.”
“He didn’t.”
Martin snatched the folder.
I grabbed it first.
He yanked back.
The papers scattered across the floor.
One sheet slid beneath the table.
Another stopped beside my shoe.
I saw my mother’s name.
Next to it were the words Irrevocable Asset Transfer.
Then the front door burst open.
“Police!”
Martin immediately raised his hands.
Rebecca collapsed into a chair.
I stepped aside.
Within minutes, the kitchen was filled with uniforms, paramedics, questions, radios, boots, and flashing light from the driveway.
Two officers went into the cellar.
Paramedics brought my parents out on stretchers.
Mom held my hand as they carried her through the kitchen.
Rebecca tried to approach.
“Mom…”
My mother turned her face away.
That devastated Rebecca more than anything I could have said.
Martin was handcuffed.
So was Rebecca.
She stared at me.
“Ethan, please.”
I said nothing.
“Please listen to me.”
An officer guided her toward the door.
She twisted around.
“Martin didn’t start this!”
I stopped.
“What?”
She was crying so hard the words barely came.
“He didn’t start it!”
“Rebecca, shut up,” Martin snapped.
An officer pushed him forward.
I walked toward my sister.
“Who did?”
Rebecca stared at me.
Then at our parents.
Then she whispered a name.
“Dad.”
Everything inside me went still.
I looked toward the ambulance.
“What are you talking about?”
“He borrowed the money first.”
Martin laughed bitterly from the doorway.
Rebecca continued.
“The documents you saw? Some are fake.”
She swallowed.
“But not all of them.”
“Rebecca—”
“Ask him about April 14th, Ethan.”
The officer led her outside.
I watched the patrol car door close.
Then I turned toward Dad.
He was lying inside the ambulance, oxygen beneath his nose.
Our eyes met.
May you like
For the first time that night, my father looked away from me.
And I knew Rebecca had told me one thing that was true.
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