The photograph changed the pace of the investigation.
Until that moment, Detective Susan Carter had been working backward from a house, a dead woman, and two rescued children.
Now she had a fixed number.
Five.
Five children had been together in Thomas Miller’s basement.
Emily and Lily were alive.
Hannah Reed remained missing.
David and Sophie were unknown.
Carter carried the photograph back to headquarters inside a rigid evidence sleeve and placed it beneath a document camera in the major-crimes room.
Nobody touched it unnecessarily.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
Emily appeared to be about five years old.
Lily looked younger than she was now.
Hannah stood close to the wall with one hand curled around the old stuffed bunny recovered beside the basement door.
The boy, David, had a bruise near his left eye.
Sophie stood nearest the camera.
She was older than the others.
Possibly ten or eleven.
Her expression disturbed Carter most.
Sophie was not looking at the lens.
She was looking past it.
At whoever held the camera.
Carter enlarged the image.
“Thomas?”
Brooks stood beside her.
“Probably.”
“Or the other man Lily mentioned.”
That possibility remained unresolved.
Emily had described a man Thomas sometimes brought downstairs.
Lily had also referred to another man being present when concrete work covered the hidden cavity.
Thomas may have acted alone in some crimes.
He may not have acted alone in all of them.
Carter wrote two words on the whiteboard.
SECOND MAN.
Then beneath them:
DAVID.
SOPHIE.
HANNAH.
She added:
KAREN.
LAURA.
“Everything connects somehow,” Brooks said.
“Or some of it does.”
“You don’t think the folders are connected?”
“I think assuming all victims fit one pattern is how investigators miss the exception.”
Brooks gave a tired half-smile.
“That’s why you’re running this.”
Carter ignored the compliment.
She began assigning teams.
One group worked the storage locker.
One rebuilt Thomas’s relationships and address history.
One reviewed all missing-person cases involving women and children in counties where he had lived.
One tried to identify David and Sophie through school photographs, child welfare files, and facial comparison.
Mary remained attached to the child-interview team.
By afternoon, hospital staff cleared Emily for a formal forensic interview.
The room was deliberately plain.
No uniforms.
No visible recording equipment beyond what was required.
A trained child interviewer named Dr. Rebecca Lane sat across from Emily at a small table while Mary watched from behind one-way glass with Carter.
Emily held June, the stuffed rabbit, against her stomach.
Dr. Lane began nowhere near Thomas.
They talked about school.
Favorite food.
How to correct adults when adults got something wrong.
The last point mattered.
Children under pressure often tried to please authority figures.
Dr. Lane wanted Emily to understand that “I don’t know” and “that’s not right” were acceptable answers.
Only after trust had been built did she place a copy of the group photograph on the table.
“Do you recognize anyone here?”
Emily stared.
Her face changed.
“That’s me.”
Dr. Lane nodded.
“Who else?”
Emily touched Lily.
“Lily.”
Then Hannah.
“Sophie.”
Behind the glass, Carter exchanged a glance with Mary.
The name mismatch was confirmed.
Dr. Lane pointed gently.
“You call this girl Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“Did she have another name?”
Emily frowned.
“Daddy called her Hannah when he was angry.”
Carter wrote quickly.
Alias or preferred name.
Dr. Lane continued.
“Who is the boy?”
“David.”
“And this girl?”
Emily stared at the oldest child.
“Katie.”
Carter immediately looked at the label written on the photograph.
Sophie.
Another mismatch.
“Did Katie have another name?” Dr. Lane asked.
Emily nodded.
“Daddy called her Sophie sometimes.”
Thomas renamed them.
Or used different names deliberately.
Perhaps to confuse the children.
Perhaps to make identification harder.
Dr. Lane asked, “Where was this picture taken?”
“The playroom.”
“Where was the playroom?”
“Downstairs.”
“Was that the room Lily was in?”
“No.”
Emily pointed toward a corner of the photograph.
“There was a door there.”
Carter enlarged the image.
A seam in the wall was visible.
Another room.
Not the concrete cavity containing Rachel.
Something else.
Dr. Lane continued gently.
“Did all five of you live there?”
Emily shook her head.
“I lived upstairs.”
“Did the others?”
“Sometimes.”
“What does sometimes mean?”
Emily became tense.
“They left.”
“How?”
“Daddy said families came.”
“Did you see the families?”
“No.”
“What happened before the children left?”
Emily looked down.
“The man came.”
Carter felt every muscle in her back tighten.
Dr. Lane did not rush.
“What man?”
“Mr. Gray.”
Carter wrote it down.
Gray could be a real surname.
Or another invented name.
“What did Mr. Gray look like?”
Emily closed her eyes.
“Tall. Big hands.”
“Hair?”
“Brown. Then gray later.”
“Did he wear anything you remember?”
“A watch.”
“What kind?”
“Gold.”
“Anything else?”
Emily opened her eyes.
“He smelled like smoke.”
Mary whispered from behind the glass, “Thomas doesn’t smoke.”
Carter nodded.
Dr. Lane asked, “What did Mr. Gray do?”
Emily hugged the rabbit harder.
“He picked children.”
The observation room became completely silent.
Dr. Lane kept her voice steady.
“What do you mean by picked?”
“He talked to Daddy. Then one child would go.”
“Go where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they come back?”
Emily shook her head.
“Sometimes.”
“Who came back?”
“Lily came back once.”
Carter looked at Mary.
That was new.
“Did Lily tell you where she had been?”
“No. She cried.”
“Did Mr. Gray ever pick you?”
Emily froze.
Dr. Lane immediately noticed.
“You don’t have to answer if you need a break.”
Emily whispered, “Daddy said I was different.”
“How?”
“He said I belonged to him.”
Carter stepped away from the glass for a moment.
The meaning was unclear.
But the structure was becoming visible.
Thomas did not merely confine children.
He appears to have moved some of them.
Possibly transferred them to someone else.
The word nobody wanted to say yet was trafficking.
Evidence would have to establish it.
Dr. Lane asked about Rachel.
Emily’s eyes filled immediately.
“Mommy found the room.”
“The playroom?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She screamed at Daddy.”
“Did you hear what they said?”
“Mommy said she was calling police.”
Carter shut her eyes.
Rachel had tried.
“What did Daddy say?”
“He said she didn't understand.”
“Then what?”
“Mr. Gray came.”
Carter looked sharply at Mary.
“He was there the night Rachel died.”
Dr. Lane asked, “Are you sure?”
Emily nodded.
“I saw his car.”
“What kind of car?”
“Black.”
“Big or small?”
“Big.”
“Anything special about it?”
Emily thought.
“It had a bird.”
Carter frowned.
“A bird?”
Mary whispered, “Logo?”
Possibly.
A car emblem.
A company mark.
A decal.
Dr. Lane did not interpret.
“Where was the bird?”
“On the back window.”
“What color?”
“White.”
The interview continued.
Emily remembered loud machinery.
Her father coming upstairs with blood on his shirt.
Mr. Gray leaving before morning.
After that, the playroom was gone.
The door had been covered.
Carter paused.
Not Rachel’s cavity.
The children’s playroom may have been separately sealed or renovated.
When investigators had opened Lily’s room, they had seen only the current basement layout.
There could be more behind those walls.
Carter called Cole from the observation area.
“Scan the entire basement.”
“Entire?”
“Every wall. Every floor section.”
“Understood.”
Before the interview ended, Dr. Lane returned to the photograph.
“Do you know what happened to David?”
Emily shook her head.
“What about Katie?”
“She ran.”
Carter stopped writing.
Dr. Lane leaned slightly closer.
“She ran away?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night Daddy was mad.”
“What happened?”
“Katie hit him.”
“With what?”
“A lamp.”
A faint spark appeared in Emily’s expression.
“She told me to hide.”
“Then?”
“She went upstairs.”
“Did you see her leave?”
“No.”
“Did your father find her?”
Emily’s confidence disappeared.
“I don’t know.”
“When did you see her again?”
“I didn’t.”
A child who might have escaped.
That gave Carter something they had not possessed before.
Possibility.
If Sophie—Katie—had escaped alive, she might be the witness capable of identifying Mr. Gray.
At the hospital’s second interview room, Lily was not ready for the same depth of questioning.
Doctors insisted on shorter sessions.
Dr. Lane showed her the photograph.
Lily immediately recognized David.
Then she pointed at the oldest girl.
“Katie.”
“Did you ever call her Sophie?”
Lily shook her head.
“No. Thomas did.”
Not Daddy.
Thomas.
The shift mattered.
Lily’s understanding of him was already changing.
“Do you remember Mr. Gray?” Dr. Lane asked.
Lily’s face went pale.
“No.”
“You don’t remember him?”
“I remember.”
“But you don’t want to talk about him?”
Lily nodded.
Dr. Lane stopped.
They would return later.
At headquarters, analysts searched for missing girls named Katie or Sophie who matched the approximate age, year, and region.
Dozens.
Then hundreds when adjacent states were included.
One analyst tried another approach.
Runaways found by police within six months of the estimated disappearance.
A result appeared from a town seventy miles away.
Girl approximately eleven.
Found wandering near a truck stop.
Would not give a full name.
Claimed the man she lived with was trying to find her.
Placed into emergency foster care.
Disappeared from placement three days later.
No confirmed identity.
The intake worker had written down the name the child finally provided.
Katie Price.
Carter stared at the surname.
Price.
Natalie Price.
One of the missing women tied to Thomas.
“Get me Natalie’s family records.”
Twenty minutes later, they had the answer.
Natalie had one daughter.
Katherine Price.
Known as Katie.
Reported missing with her mother eleven years earlier.
The ages did not make sense initially.
Then Carter realized the photograph had to be older than Emily’s current age suggested.
Maybe the child in the photograph was not Emily.
She zoomed in again.
Same hair.
Same face shape.
But photographs could deceive.
She called Mary.
“Ask Emily whether she remembers the picture being taken.”
The answer came back quickly.
Emily did not.
She only recognized herself because Thomas had always told her the little girl in old basement photos was her.
Carter leaned back.
A deeper manipulation.
Thomas may have convinced Emily she occupied someone else’s childhood images.
Cole called from Maplewood Drive.
“We found another void.”
“Where?”
“Behind the shelving wall near the old furnace.”
“Large?”
“Room-sized.”
Carter stood.
“Don’t open anything until I’m there.”
As she grabbed her coat, an analyst called from across the room.
“Detective, we found Katie Price.”
Carter stopped.
“Where?”
The analyst stared at the screen.
“Alive.”
Carter crossed the room.
Katherine Price was twenty-two now.
She had legally changed her name at eighteen.
She lived two states away.
Employment records placed her at a veterinary clinic.
No criminal history.
No missing-person status.
No indication she knew police had spent more than a decade searching under her childhood identity.
Carter stared at the adult photograph.
The face was older.
Sharper.
But unmistakably related to the frightened child in Thomas’s basement photograph.
“Call local police there,” Carter said.
“Tell them not to approach her like a suspect. Tell them we believe she survived Thomas Miller.”
Brooks stood beside her.
“If she remembers Gray…”
Carter nodded.
“She may know who he is.”
The analyst reached for the phone.
Then Carter’s own mobile rang.
It was Cole.
His voice had changed.
“We opened a viewing hole.”
“What do you see?”
Silence.
Then:
“Beds.”
Carter stopped breathing for a moment.
“How many?”
“Four.”
A pause.
“And chains.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: The Sealed Room Contained Four Beds, but a Survivor Two States Away Remembered the Man Thomas Had Always Called Mr. Gray
The Dispatcher Heard a Child Whisper About a Snake, Then Realized the Call Was Not About an Animal
Part 6 of 35
