Brenda blinked, her face confused. “She’s at my mother’s… I told you in the email.”
“What email?”
Brenda’s face faltered. “I didn’t get any email.”
His instincts screamed that something was wrong. “Why is she at your mother’s at three in the morning?”
“She’s been there since Tuesday. Mom’s been watching her. I… I had some things to handle. Work stuff,” she explained, but her words didn’t match the panic he saw in her eyes.
Eric stared at his wife, processing the situation. In the 12 years they’d been married, he’d learned how to read people—how to tell when something was off. And right now, everything about Brenda screamed that she was hiding something.
“Where’s Emma, Brenda?” he asked again, more forcefully this time.
“She’s at my mom’s,” she repeated, but her hands were trembling. Not from sleep. From something deeper.
Without another word, Eric grabbed his keys and stormed out of the house. He had to see Emma, to make sure she was okay. His truck roared to life as he sped down the road toward his mother-in-law’s house, deep in the mountains.
The drive was nerve-wracking. It had been years since he’d been to Myrtle Savage’s home. Brenda’s mother had never liked him, and the feeling was mutual. The woman was cold, distant, and too involved in her so-called “spiritual retreat” to pay attention to the damage she caused.
When he arrived at the sprawling farmhouse, the lights were on—a second wrong thing. No one should be awake at this hour. The front door opened before he even reached it, revealing Myrtle standing in the doorway. Her tall, thin frame was backlit by the harsh light inside, and her gray hair was pulled back into a tight bun.
“Eric, Brenda called. She said you were coming.”
“Where’s Emma?” Eric demanded, already pushing past her, ignoring the chill in her eyes.
“She’s sleeping,” Myrtle replied, her voice sharp.
Eric’s mind raced. Something was very wrong. Why was Brenda’s mother acting so calm? Why was she being so cryptic about Emma? He moved through the house, eyes darting, looking for signs that something wasn’t right.
He finally found Emma in the backyard. It wasn’t where he expected to find her. There, in the middle of the yard, was a hole—about four feet deep and three feet wide. And standing in it, shivering in her pajamas, was Emma.
“Daddy!” Emma cried out, her voice small and terrified.
Eric didn’t waste a second. He ran to her, lifting her out of the hole as if she weighed nothing. She was ice-cold, her pajamas soaked through with mud and dew. He wrapped his jacket around her, holding her tightly against his chest as she shook.
“How long have you been out here?” Eric asked, his voice strained with worry.
“I don’t know. Grandma said… she said bad girls sleep in graves. I need to learn,” Emma sobbed, barely able to speak between the tears. “I need to learn.”
Eric’s heart broke as he listened to her words. How could anyone—especially a grandmother—do this to a child? The anger inside him burned white-hot, but he pushed it down. He needed to stay calm for Emma.
“I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe now,” he said, his voice soft as he tried to comfort her.
But Emma wasn’t done. “Daddy, don’t look in the other hole,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“What other hole, Emma?”
“Please… don’t look.”
Eric’s flashlight beam swept across the yard. He could see another hole in the distance, covered with boards. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He had to know what was in it. He told Emma to close her eyes, but she shook her head.
“I can’t. I need to see,” he muttered to himself, moving toward the second hole.
When he pulled the boards aside and shone his flashlight inside, the smell hit him first. The stench of decay, earth, and something chemical. He moved the beam deeper into the hole, and what he saw made his blood run cold.
Bones. Small bones. A skull that was unmistakably human and unmistakably a child’s. Scraps of fabric and something else—a metal tag, like a dog tag with a name stamped on it. “Sarah Chun.”
Eric froze. This was no accident. This was deliberate. A crime scene.
He snapped three photos with his phone before quickly covering the hole again. He knew exactly what he had to do next…
