Chapter 3 - The Firehouse
Detective Harper read the anonymous message three times.
Officer Brooks looked over his shoulder.
"What do you think?"
"I think someone waited years to send this."
Within minutes...
Two detectives drove toward the abandoned firehouse on the edge of town.
The building had been empty for nearly fifteen years.
Its windows were boarded.
Its parking lot had disappeared beneath weeds.
Inside...
Dust covered everything.
Flashlights swept across cracked concrete floors.
Nothing.
Until Detective Harper noticed fresh footprints.
Someone had been there recently.
The tracks led toward an old storage room.
Officer Brooks forced the swollen wooden door open.
Inside stood rusted filing cabinets.
Broken furniture.
Rotting cardboard boxes.
Then...
A locked steel locker.
The padlock looked new.
Harper broke it open.
The locker door creaked slowly.
Inside were dozens of sealed envelopes.
Each carried a child's name.
Every envelope contained photographs.
Medical reports.
School records.
Handwritten statements.
Most disturbing of all...
Every file mentioned Diana Harrington.
Officer Brooks swallowed hard.
"This wasn't one victim."
Harper shook his head.
"No."
"This was a pattern."
Back at the hospital...
Emma finally opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was me.
"Daddy..."
"I'm here."
"I thought..."
She struggled to breathe.
"I thought you weren't coming."
The words shattered me.
I leaned forward.
"I will always come."
"No matter what."
She wrapped her tiny fingers around mine.
"There was another girl."
I froze.
"What girl?"
Emma stared at the ceiling.
"The one in the basement."
Every sound inside the hospital room disappeared.
"What basement?"
Emma's voice became barely audible.
"She cried every night."
Then she fell asleep again.
I slowly looked toward Officer Brooks.
He had heard every word.
Neither of us spoke.
Because we were both thinking exactly the same thing.
If Emma was telling the truth...
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This case had just become something far darker than child abuse.
Someone else might still be missing.
