Chapter 2 - My Dead Wife Was Alive
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Then Vanessa ran.
Not toward the door.
Toward the hallway.
I caught her before she reached it.
"Where are you going?"
"To shut off the alarm."
"What alarm?"
"The one you just triggered."
My grip tightened around her wrist.
"Open the door."
"Daniel, listen to me. If Claire is awake, we have minutes. Maybe less."
The name shattered whatever control I had left.
"You knew she was in there."
Vanessa's eyes filled with tears.
"Yes."
Lily made a sound behind me that I will never forget.
Not a cry.
A tiny broken gasp.
I turned and saw my daughter staring at the steel door as if the whole world had lied to her.
"Mommy is alive?"
I knelt in front of her.
"I don't know what is happening yet."
"She said your name."
"I know."
"Open it."
I looked at Vanessa.
"Code."
She shook her head.
I stood.
"Code."
"4721."
The keypad flashed green.
The steel door unlocked with a heavy mechanical click.
I opened it.
Cold air rolled out.
The room behind the wall was no closet.
It was a ten-foot-deep chamber with concrete walls, a cot, a sink, medical supplies, bottled water, a camera in the ceiling, and a second locked door at the far end.
Claire sat on the floor beside the cot.
She was thinner than I remembered. Her dark hair had been cut unevenly above her shoulders. A bruise yellowed one cheek. There were medical tape marks along both arms.
But it was Claire.
My first wife.
The mother of my child.
Alive.
Lily ran before I could stop her.
"Mommy!"
Claire made a terrible sound and crawled forward.
They collided in the middle of the room.
Claire wrapped both arms around Lily and shook so hard I thought she might collapse.
I couldn't move.
I had buried an empty casket.
I had stood in a church while people told me to accept what God had taken.
I had married another woman.
And Claire had been behind a wall in my house.
She looked over Lily's shoulder at me.
"How long?" I asked.
Claire swallowed.
"I don't know."
Vanessa stood in the doorway.
Claire's face changed.
Fear.
"Get her away from Lily."
I turned on Vanessa.
"You heard her."
Vanessa did not move.
Instead, she looked at the camera in the ceiling.
"We need to leave the house."
"You're not going anywhere."
"Daniel, whoever is watching that camera now knows Claire is awake."
"You were watching her."
"No."
"You knew the code."
"Because Claire gave it to me before she disappeared."
Claire flinched.
I looked at her.
"Is that true?"
She closed her eyes.
"Part of it."
My stomach dropped.
Before I could ask what that meant, the second steel door at the back of the chamber clicked.
Once.
Then twice.
Claire grabbed Lily and pulled her close.
"Daniel," she whispered. "That door only opens from the other side."
A red light above it turned green.
Vanessa stared at it.
"They're here."
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