No one moved.
The single word from behind the steel door had transformed the basement from a suspicious room into a rescue scene.
Daniel leaned closer.
“My name is Daniel. I’m a police officer. Can you hear me?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Mary closed her eyes for half a second.
The voice was unquestionably a child’s.
“What’s your name?” Daniel asked.
“Lily.”
“How old are you, Lily?”
The answer took several seconds.
“Seven.”
Mary looked at Jenkins.
His face had gone rigid.
“Can you open the door from your side?” Daniel asked.
“No.”
“Do you see a lock?”
“I don’t have the key.”
“Are you hurt?”
Lily hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
The same answer Emily had given Claire.
Daniel glanced toward Mary.
“Are you alone?”
Another long silence.
“I think so.”
“What do you mean?”
“It gets dark.”
Daniel did not press her.
“We’re opening the door. There will be loud noises. Move as far away from it as you can.”
Upstairs, Thomas apparently understood what was happening.
His voice erupted through the house.
“Don’t open it!”
Daniel looked toward the ceiling.
Thomas struggled against the officers holding him.
“You’ll ruin everything!”
Mary stared up the stairwell.
Whatever mask Thomas had maintained was gone.
Jenkins brought the ram downstairs.
The reinforced door resisted the first strike.
And the second.
Dust drifted from the ceiling after the third.
“Lily?” Daniel called.
“I’m here.”
“Stay back.”
Fourth strike.
The frame bent.
Fifth.
Metal tore away around the deadbolt.
Daniel pulled the door open several inches.
Stale air escaped.
He widened the gap.
His flashlight entered first.
The room beyond was small.
Someone had painted the walls pale yellow.
A narrow bed stood against one side.
A dresser occupied another.
There were colored pencils, children's books and a moon-shaped night-light.
For one disorienting moment it looked almost cozy.
Then Mary noticed what was absent.
No windows.
No clock.
No exterior door.
No natural light.
Nothing that allowed the child inside to measure time or leave.
A girl was curled in the far corner beneath a faded blanket.
Her blond hair had been cut unevenly. Her cheeks were hollow, and she squinted painfully when Daniel’s flashlight crossed the floor.
He immediately lowered the beam.
“Lily?”
The child watched him.
“I’m Daniel.”
No response.
“That’s Mary. Jenkins is behind us.”
Lily pulled the blanket tighter.
“We’re police officers.”
Her eyes filled.
“Is he gone?”
Daniel stayed where he was.
“Who?”
“My daddy.”
Mary and Daniel exchanged a glance.
“What’s your daddy’s name?”
Lily looked confused by the question.
“The man upstairs.”
“Thomas?”
The girl nodded.
Mary felt nausea rise in her throat.
Thomas had one known daughter.
Emily.
Yet this seven-year-old child was hidden behind a steel door and also called him Daddy.
Mary entered slowly.
“Lily, when did you last go outside?”
The girl frowned as though Mary had asked her to remember a dream.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you know what month it is?”
“No.”
“What year?”
Lily shook her head.
Beside the bed Daniel noticed a calendar.
It was three years out of date.
Most days carried small marks.
Then, after one particular date, the marks stopped.
Mary opened the dresser carefully.
Children’s clothing filled the drawers.
Different sizes.
Some far too small for Lily.
Others larger.
They could not possibly all belong to the same child.
Mary closed the drawer.
“We need medics.”
Jenkins radioed immediately.
Daniel offered Lily his hand.
“Can you stand?”
She tried.
Her knees folded beneath her.
Mary caught her.
Lily looked embarrassed.
“I forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
“How to walk far.”
Mary supported her without answering.
The child weighed frighteningly little.
As they prepared to carry her out, Jenkins noticed marks carved into the inside of the steel door.
Hundreds of scratches overlapped one another.
Some appeared old enough to have darkened with grime.
Others looked recent.
One message had been carved deeply into the metal.
PLEASE FIND ME.
Below it was a single word.
MOM.
Mary looked at Lily.
“Did you write those?”
Lily turned away.
Paramedics entered the basement minutes later.
They examined her where she sat before attempting to move her upstairs.
Meanwhile, Detective Susan Carter arrived and began coordinating a full investigation.
The house that had looked ordinary from the street was sealed.
Neighbors gathered behind police tape.
At first, their stories were mundane.
Thomas mowed his lawn.
Thomas waved.
Thomas attended school events.
Thomas put decorations up at Christmas.
Then an elderly neighbor named Eleanor Watkins remembered something.
“There was another little girl.”
Carter stopped writing.
“When?”
“Years ago. Before Emily was around much.”
“Do you remember her name?”
Eleanor thought.
“Hannah. I think.”
“What happened to her?”
“Thomas said her mother took her away.”
“Did you ever see the mother?”
Eleanor opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
“No.”
Another neighbor overheard them.
“There was a boy too.”
Carter turned.
“What boy?”
“I only saw him twice. Maybe three times. Thomas said he was family.”
“What happened to him?”
“He said his sister took the boy out of state.”
“Did you meet the sister?”
The neighbor shook his head.
Inside, forensic technicians photographed every room.
One technician studying the family photographs noticed that Emily’s mother was almost entirely absent.
There was one wedding photograph.
Her face had been scratched repeatedly.
Detective Carter stood before it for a long time.
This was no longer an investigation into a single emergency call.
The house appeared to contain traces of people who had vanished from Thomas’s public life one by one.
Lily was brought upstairs on a stretcher.
When she saw Emily, both girls stared at each other.
Emily stepped forward.
“Lily?”
Lily’s eyes widened.
“Emily?”
Thomas, restrained near the front of the house, turned toward them.
Emily immediately backed away.
Mary positioned herself between the children and Thomas.
Lily reached for Emily.
Emily took her hand.
Neither child spoke.
They did not need to.
The recognition between them answered one important question.
Lily was real.
But it raised many worse ones.
Outside, paramedics prepared to transport both girls to the hospital.
Lily kept hold of Mary’s fingers.
“Can I ask something?”
“Anything.”
“Can I have a birthday?”
Mary stared at her.
“Of course.”
Lily looked uncertain.
“He said downstairs children don’t get birthdays.”
Mary squeezed her hand.
“You’re not staying downstairs anymore.”
For the first time, something resembling relief crossed Lily’s face.
Then she looked back at the house.
Her expression changed.
“There’s another room.”
Mary leaned closer.
“Where?”
“Behind mine.”
Daniel, standing nearby, heard her.
“What kind of room?”
Lily pointed weakly toward the basement.
“It isn’t there now.”
Mary frowned.
“What happened to it?”
Lily swallowed.
“Daddy covered it.”
“With what?”
“Concrete.”
Every nearby officer became still.
Daniel asked, “Why?”
Lily looked toward Thomas.
“He did it after the lady stopped crying.”
The ambulance doors remained open.
Mary felt Lily’s fingers tighten around hers.
“What lady?”
“I don’t know her name.”
“When did you hear her?”
“A long time ago.”
“What happened?”
Lily stared toward the basement windows.
“Daddy brought another man. They used loud machines all night.”
Thomas watched them from beside the patrol car.
His face had lost all color.
Lily continued in a whisper.
“When morning came, I couldn’t hear the lady anymore.”
Detective Carter stepped toward Sergeant Brooks.
“We need ground-penetrating radar.”
Brooks nodded.
“No one touches that wall until we know what’s behind it.”
Thomas lowered his head.
For the first time since police arrived, he no longer argued.
And as the ambulance carrying Emily and Lily pulled away from Maplewood Drive, floodlights illuminated the basement windows while investigators prepared to find out exactly what Thomas Miller had buried behind the concrete.
Click here to continue reading: PART 5: Investigators Broke Through the Hidden Concrete Wall and Found Evidence That Turned One Missing Woman Into a Much Larger Case
The Dispatcher Heard a Child Whisper About a Snake, Then Realized the Call Was Not About an Animal
Part 4 of 35
