Daniel’s overseas project ended two weeks early, and he decided to come home without warning. When he entered the mansion at sunset, something felt instantly wrong. The house was dark, lifeless, strangely neglected. He called for Vanessa and Lily. No one answered.
Then he saw the doll on the shelf.
He picked it up, heard something faintly rattling inside, and opened the heart-shaped locket. A folded slip of paper fell into his hand.
Daddy, I’m under the stairs. I’m scared. Please come home.
For one terrible second, Daniel could not breathe.
Then he ran to the staircase. A cabinet had been placed in front of the lower section. He felt cold air coming from behind it and heard a faint response when he shouted Lily’s name. He smashed the cabinet apart, broke through the locked door, and found his daughter curled in the corner beneath the stairs, wrapped in a worn blanket, pale, freezing, and weak from neglect.
“Daddy? Is it really you?” she whispered.
He dropped to his knees, held her in his arms, and apologized over and over. On the wall behind her were dozens of tiny marks, each one a day she had been hidden there.