Chapter 3 - THE EMPTY HANDCUFFS
Emergency lights flickered on.
Agent Ross ran into the hallway with his weapon raised.
The paramedics pulled me behind the bed.
Another gunshot cracked downstairs.
Then silence.
“Stay here,” Ross ordered.
I ignored him.
The moment he disappeared down the stairs, I pushed myself upright.
My injured leg buckled.
The paramedic caught me.
“You cannot stand.”
“My husband is loose.”
“We don’t know that.”
I looked at the broken doorway.
“Yes, we do.”
Jason never shouted my name unless he wanted me to move toward him.
It was a signal.
A trap.
I grabbed the metal leg of the overturned baby crib and used it like a cane.
The baby monitor was still sealed inside the evidence bag.
Its red light continued blinking despite the power outage.
Battery-operated.
Still recording.
I took it with me.
At the top of the stairs, I saw Agent Hayes lying beside the front door.
Blood covered his shoulder.
His handcuffs were empty.
Ross crouched beside him while shouting into a radio.
Jason was gone.
The front window stood open.
Rain blew across the carpet.
Hayes gritted his teeth.
“He had a blade hidden in his belt.”
Ross looked toward me.
“I told you to stay upstairs.”
“He’s coming back.”
“We have agents surrounding the block.”
“That won’t stop him.”
Ross stood.
“What will?”
I looked toward the basement door.
It was open.
Jason never left doors open.
Especially that one.
“He didn’t escape through the window.”
Ross followed my eyes.
The rain on the carpet was deliberate.
A false trail.
Hayes had been attacked near the entrance so everyone would assume Jason fled outside.
I pointed toward the basement.
“He’s still in the house.”
Ross raised his weapon.
Two more agents entered through the front door.
They moved toward the basement stairs.
I stayed behind them.
The first agent reached the bottom.
A light clicked on.
The basement appeared empty.
Laundry machines.
Storage shelves.
Jason’s locked workbench.
Then the wall behind the furnace shifted.
A concealed door.
Ross pulled it open.
A narrow tunnel ran beneath the house.
Fresh mud covered the floor.
“He built this?” Ross asked.
“I didn’t know it existed.”
We followed the tunnel forty feet before reaching another room.
Computer screens lined the walls.
Photographs covered a corkboard.
Most showed me.
At grocery stores.
Medical appointments.
Sleeping.
Changing clothes.
One photograph had been taken inside the bathroom.
I covered my mouth.
Ross examined the computers.
“Surveillance archive.”
A map on the wall marked my daily routes.
The clinic.
My sister’s apartment.
The library.
The cemetery where my parents were buried.
Every place I thought I had gone alone.
An ultrasound photograph was pinned in the center.
A red circle had been drawn around a tiny white shadow near the placenta.
Beneath it, Jason had written:
KEY ACCEPTED.
I felt sick.
Ross looked at the image.
“What key?”
A phone began ringing on the desk.
Not Jason’s regular phone.
A black encrypted device.
Ross answered on speaker.
Jason’s voice filled the room.
“You found my office.”
“Where are you?” Ross asked.
“Close enough.”
I stepped forward.
“What did you put inside me?”
A pause.
Then he said,
“Nothing.”
My relief lasted less than a second.
“Your father did.”
The computer screens activated at once.
A video began playing.
My father sat inside a laboratory.
Alive.
Older.
He looked directly into the camera.
May you like
Then he said,
“The child is the final storage device.”
