PART 2 — THE TRACKER IN THE BUNNY
And right then, looking down at Chloe, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before.
A tiny green light was blinking beneath the torn fabric of her stuffed bunny’s left ear.
For half a second, my brain refused to understand what I was looking at.
Then I reached down.
“Chloe,” I whispered. “Can Uncle Marcus see Bunny for a second?”
Her arms tightened around it.
“No.”
“It’s okay. I’m not taking him away.”
She stared at me, terrified.
Another knock hit the front door.
Three slow thuds.
“Marcus,” David called from outside, still using that calm, friendly voice. “There’s no reason to make this complicated.”
My sister was still on speakerphone.
“Do not open that door!” Sarah hissed.
I crouched lower.
“Chloe, sweetheart, there’s something inside Bunny’s ear.”
Her face changed immediately.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
She knew.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
My stomach dropped.
“What is it?”
Chloe looked toward the front door.
“He knows.”
“Knows what?”
“Where I go.”
I felt something cold settle inside my chest.
Carefully, I turned the bunny over.
A few stitches beneath the ear looked newer than the rest.
I grabbed a pair of kitchen scissors from the counter, snipped one loose thread, and pulled the fabric apart just enough to expose a small black device.
A tracker.
David hadn’t guessed where Chloe was.
He had followed her.
“Sarah,” I said into the phone, “there’s a tracking device sewn into Chloe’s stuffed animal.”
My sister went silent.
Then I heard her whisper:
“Oh God.”
David knocked again.
This time harder.
“Marcus.”
My name sounded different now.
The friendliness was slipping.
“I know you’re standing right there.”
I motioned for Chloe to stay behind me and guided her quietly toward the kitchen.
“Go behind the island.”
She obeyed instantly.
Too instantly.
That hurt more than I could explain.
I locked the deadbolt.
Then the chain.
Then I grabbed my phone with my free hand and dialed 911.
The dispatcher answered.
“911. What is your emergency?”
“There’s a man outside my house trying to take my five-year-old niece. Her mother has told me not to release the child to him. We believe he has been abusing her, and I just discovered a tracking device hidden inside her toy.”
The dispatcher’s tone sharpened immediately.
“Is the man armed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do not confront him. Officers are being sent to your location.”
I gave my address.
David must have heard part of the conversation through the door, because everything outside suddenly went quiet.
Too quiet.
I moved toward the side window.
His car was parked along the curb.
A black SUV.
Engine still running.
Driver’s door open.
But David wasn’t standing on the porch anymore.
“Where did he go?” I whispered.
Then Chloe screamed.
I spun around.
She was pointing toward the backyard.
David was standing outside the sliding glass door.
Smiling.
My blood turned to ice.
He lifted one hand and tapped gently on the glass.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Then he smiled at Chloe.
“There’s my girl.”
Chloe collapsed behind the kitchen island.
I rushed to the sliding door and checked the lock.
Locked.
David placed both palms against the glass.
“Open the door, Marcus.”
“Get off my property.”
He tilted his head.
“You’re making a misunderstanding into something dangerous.”
“A misunderstanding?”
My hands were shaking now, but my voice wasn’t.
“You starved a five-year-old.”
His smile disappeared.
“I have no idea what she told you.”
“I found the schedule.”
That did it.
For the first time, David looked genuinely surprised.
Only for a second.
Then the mask returned.
“What schedule?”
“Monday, no dinner. Tuesday, water only. Wednesday, bread if she obeys.”
Sarah gasped through the speaker.
“You found it?”
“Yes.”
David stared through the glass.
Then his eyes shifted toward Chloe’s backpack sitting beside the dining table.
I saw the exact moment he realized where I had found the paper.
And suddenly I understood something terrifying.
David wasn’t worried about being accused.
He was worried about evidence.
He stepped away from the glass.
“Marcus,” he said quietly, “you’re involving yourself in something you don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
He smiled again.
But now there was nothing friendly about it.
“Ask your sister.”
My eyes dropped toward the phone.
Sarah said nothing.
“Sarah?”
Still nothing.
“Sarah, what is he talking about?”
Her breathing became uneven.
“Marcus…”
David laughed from the other side of the glass.
“There it is.”
“Shut up!” Sarah screamed through the phone.
David’s expression hardened.
Then, from somewhere in the distance, I heard sirens.
David heard them too.
He stepped backward.
“You really called the police?”
“Absolutely.”
He stared at me for several seconds.
Then he looked past me at Chloe.
What happened next made every hair on my body stand straight up.
He smiled at her.
And mouthed two words.
Friday lockdown.
Chloe screamed.
“No! No! No!”
She crawled backward so quickly she knocked over one of the dining chairs.
I ran to her.
“It’s okay. He can’t get inside.”
But she was barely hearing me.
“Don’t let him put me downstairs!”
“What downstairs?”
Her eyes were enormous.
“The quiet room.”
My heart nearly stopped.
“What quiet room?”
“The one under the stairs.”
Sarah suddenly made a choking sound through the phone.
“Marcus.”
“What?”
“I found that room tonight.”
David’s face changed.
He could hear her.
Even through the glass.
“What did you find?” I demanded.
“I came home early from work yesterday. David wasn’t expecting me. Chloe was supposed to be at preschool, but when I got home, her shoes were by the door.”
Chloe was crying into my shirt now.
Sarah continued.
“I called her name. Nothing. I checked her room. Empty. Then I heard tapping.”
“Tapping?”
“From inside the wall.”
I closed my eyes.
I already knew I wasn’t going to like what came next.
“There’s a storage space beneath the staircase,” Sarah said. “David always told me it was sealed because of plumbing. But there was a keypad behind a picture frame.”
David suddenly slammed his palm against the glass.
“Sarah!”
My sister screamed.
He had heard enough.
The calm man was gone.
His face twisted with rage.
“Sarah, hang up the damn phone!”
I stepped between him and Chloe.
“Keep talking.”
“I guessed the code,” Sarah continued, crying now. “It was Chloe’s birthday.”
Something about that made me sick.
“When I opened the door…”
She stopped.
“Sarah.”
“There was a mattress on the floor.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“A blanket. Bottles of water. A bucket. And one of Chloe’s shoes.”
I looked down at my niece.
She had buried her face in my chest.
“And the camera?” I asked.
“That’s what led me there. I found one in her bedroom first. Then another pointed toward the hallway.”
David backed away from the sliding door.
The sirens were getting louder.
Sarah’s voice trembled.
“But Marcus… that still wasn’t the worst thing.”
“What was?”
“I found a laptop.”
David turned toward the backyard fence.
He was going to run.
I resisted every instinct to chase him.
The dispatcher had ordered me to stay inside.
“What was on the laptop?”
“Video files.”
My stomach twisted.
“Of Chloe?”
“Some.”
Sarah started crying harder.
“But there were folders with other names.”
Silence.
I stared at the backyard where David was now climbing over the fence.
“How many names?”
“At least seven.”
My heart stopped.
Seven.
Before I could respond, flashing red and blue lights spilled across the front windows.
The police had arrived.
“Officers are here,” I told Sarah.
“Marcus, listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“Give them everything. The paper. The tracker. Everything Chloe tells you.”
“I will.”
“And don’t let David convince them this is some custody argument.”
“I won’t.”
“Because he’s going to try.”
Two officers approached the front porch while another moved around the side of the house.
I opened the door only after verifying their uniforms.
“Where is he?” one officer asked.
“Backyard. He jumped the fence.”
The officer immediately radioed something.
His partner entered the house.
Then she saw Chloe.
Her entire expression softened.
“Hi there,” she said gently.
Chloe buried her face deeper against me.
The officer didn’t approach.
Good.
“Is that the child?”
“Yes.”
“Are you her legal guardian?”
“No. I’m her uncle. Her mother placed her with me for three days.”
“Where is the mother?”
“In Portland.”
Sarah interrupted through the speaker.
“No, I’m not.”
I froze.
“What?”
There was a long pause.
“Sarah, what do you mean?”
“I never went to Portland.”
My stomach sank.
The officer looked at me.
I slowly lifted the phone.
“Sarah, where are you?”
“At home.”
“Your home?”
“Yes.”
“With the laptop?”
“Yes.”
I nearly shouted.
“Why are you still there?”
“Because I needed proof.”
“Get out of that house!”
“I copied everything onto a flash drive.”
“Sarah, listen to me. Take the drive and leave.”
“I tried.”
The way she said those two words silenced the entire room.
“What happened?”
“My car won’t start.”
The female officer immediately took out her radio.
“Give me the address.”
I rattled off Sarah’s address from memory.
The officer called for units.
Sarah began breathing faster.
Then we heard something through the phone.
A door opening.
Not on my end.
On hers.
Sarah stopped breathing.
“Sarah?”
Nothing.
Then footsteps.
Slow.
Heavy.
Moving somewhere inside her house.
My skin prickled.
“Sarah,” I whispered. “Lock yourself somewhere right now.”
“I’m in the bedroom.”
“Lock it.”
“I did.”
A floorboard creaked over the phone.
Then another.
“Police are coming,” I told her.
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly there was pounding against Sarah’s bedroom door.
She screamed.
“Sarah!”
A man’s voice shouted from the hallway.
But it wasn’t David.
“Open the door!”
My sister went completely silent.
The officer beside me leaned closer to the phone.
“Ma’am, this is Seattle Police. Do not open that door. Units are heading to you now.”
Another bang.
“Sarah!”
I recognized the voice.
And that made no sense.
Because I had met the man before.
Many times.
He had sat across from me at Thanksgiving.
He had played football with Chloe at family picnics.
He had once told me that David was “the best thing that ever happened to Sarah.”
It was David’s older brother.
Nathan.
“Why is Nathan there?” I whispered.
Sarah started sobbing.
“I think he knows about the laptop.”
The pounding stopped.
Silence again.
Then Nathan’s voice became strangely calm.
“Sarah, David called me. He said you’re having some kind of breakdown. Open the door so I can help you.”
The officer shook her head hard.
“Do not respond.”
Sarah remained silent.
Then we heard Nathan walk away.
For a moment, I thought he had left.
Then Sarah gasped.
“What?”
“He’s trying the window.”
“Move away from it!”
Glass shattered.
Sarah screamed.
The phone hit something.
Then the call disconnected.
“Sarah!”
I redialed immediately.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
The officer radioed the responding units and told them someone might be forcing entry.
I felt completely helpless.
Then something strange happened.
Chloe stopped crying.
She lifted her head.
“Nathan?”
I stared at her.
“You know him?”
She nodded.
“How?”
Her lower lip trembled.
“He watches sometimes.”
The officer and I exchanged a look.
“Watches what?” I asked.
Chloe didn’t answer.
Instead, she pointed toward her backpack.
“He has the red book.”
“What red book?”
“The book with everybody’s rules.”
The officer moved carefully toward the backpack.
“Is it inside there?”
Chloe shook her head.
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
My pulse hammered.
“Where?”
“Behind the washing machine.”
The officer immediately relayed that information.
Then another cop entered from the backyard.
“Suspect’s vehicle is still here. We lost him two streets over. Units are searching.”
I stared at the open front door.
David was somewhere in the neighborhood.
Nathan was apparently inside Sarah’s house.
And somewhere behind my sister’s washing machine was a book Chloe believed contained rules for multiple people.
This was no longer one cruel boyfriend mistreating one child.
Something much bigger was happening.
The female officer crouched several feet from Chloe.
“Sweetheart, can I ask you something?”
Chloe nodded hesitantly.
“Who is ‘everybody’?”
Chloe clutched the bunny.
“Kids.”
The room went completely still.
“How many kids?”
She looked down at her fingers as if trying to count.
Then she whispered:
“I don’t know all their names.”
I felt sick.
“But you’ve seen them?”
A tiny nod.
“Where?”
Chloe pointed toward the floor.
“Downstairs.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Sarah’s house didn’t have a basement.
At least, I had never seen one.
“What downstairs?”
“The other house.”
“What other house?”
Chloe’s eyes immediately filled with fear again.
“David says I’m never supposed to tell.”
“He’s not here right now.”
“He’ll know.”
“How?”
She pointed toward Bunny.
I pulled the tracker out completely and placed it on the counter.
“He can’t hear you through this anymore.”
Chloe stared at the device.
Then she slowly shook her head.
“That’s not the listening one.”
Every adult in the room froze.
I looked at the bunny.
“What?”
She pointed toward its plastic eye.
“That one is.”
I almost dropped the toy.
The officer took it from me with gloved hands.
She examined the eye.
Then looked at her partner.
“Bag this.”
Chloe had been carrying a microphone.
Possibly a camera.
David hadn’t merely been tracking her.
He may have been listening to everything.
Including our conversation.
Including Sarah telling us about the laptop.
Including the address we had just given the police.
My phone rang.
Sarah.
I answered instantly.
“Sarah?”
For several seconds, all I heard was breathing.
“Sarah, talk to me.”
Then a man spoke.
“Marcus.”
Not Nathan.
David.
My entire body went cold.
“How did you get Sarah’s phone?”
He chuckled.
“You really should have opened the door when I asked politely.”
“Where is my sister?”
“She’s fine.”
“Put her on.”
“No.”
The officer gestured for me to keep him talking.
“What do you want?”
“Chloe.”
I looked at my niece.
She was staring at the phone.
Terrified.
“You’re never touching her again.”
David sighed.
“You still think this is about me.”
“What does that mean?”
“This family had problems long before I arrived.”
“Where is Sarah?”
“Ask her why Chloe knows about the other house.”
My eyes narrowed.
“What other house?”
Silence.
Then David said something I never expected.
“Ask Sarah what happened three years ago.”
My throat tightened.
“What happened three years ago?”
“You really don’t know?”
His voice sounded almost amused.
“Know what?”
“Why your sister moved across Seattle.”
I remembered.
Sarah had moved suddenly.
She told everyone the rent was cheaper.
“David.”
“Yes?”
“If you hurt her—”
“You should be worrying about someone else.”
The call disconnected.
I stared at the phone.
Someone else?
Then Chloe tugged on my sleeve.
“Uncle Marcus?”
“What is it?”
She looked toward the stairs.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
Her face had gone pale.
“Mommy told me never to tell you.”
My heart started pounding.
“Tell me what?”
Chloe looked at the police officer.
Then back at me.
“The other house belongs to Grandma.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t process the sentence.
“Our grandma?”
Chloe nodded.
“My mother?”
Another nod.
That was impossible.
My mother lived forty minutes north of Seattle in a quiet house she had owned for nearly twenty years.
The house where Sarah and I spent every Christmas.
The house where Chloe had her third birthday.
The house where my mother regularly complained that she barely saw her granddaughter anymore.
“Chloe,” I said carefully, “what happens at Grandma’s house?”
She lowered her voice.
“There’s a door in the garage.”
I remembered that garage.
There was a storage room at the back that had always been locked.
My mother said it contained old furniture and boxes from my father.
“What’s behind the door?”
Chloe whispered:
“Stairs.”
I couldn’t feel my hands anymore.
“Where do the stairs go?”
“Down.”
“To what?”
She squeezed Bunny so tightly its ears folded over.
“The room where we wait.”
The female officer stood immediately.
She started speaking rapidly into her radio.
I barely heard her.
My entire childhood seemed to rearrange itself in my mind.
Locked doors.
Rooms we weren’t allowed to enter.
My mother’s obsession with privacy.
David somehow entering our family so effortlessly.
Nathan always appearing at holidays.
Sarah suddenly moving.
Seven names on a laptop.
A red book.
The other house.
And my mother.
“No,” I whispered.
I didn’t want to believe it.
Then Chloe said one final thing.
“Grandma says Mommy used to wait there too.”
My blood turned to ice.
Sarah.
Not Chloe.
Sarah had been there before.
When she was young.
I stared at my niece.
“How old was Mommy?”
Chloe shrugged.
“Grandma said she was little like me.”
A terrible understanding started forming.
David might not have created this nightmare.
He might have discovered it.
Joined it.
Expanded it.
Or inherited it.
Before I could ask another question, the front door opened and one of the officers rushed inside.
“We located the sister.”
I jumped to my feet.
“Is she okay?”
The officer hesitated.
That hesitation terrified me more than any answer.
“She’s alive.”
I nearly collapsed with relief.
“But?”
“Nathan fled before officers arrived. Your sister has minor injuries. Paramedics are checking her.”
“And David?”
“Still missing.”
“Can I talk to Sarah?”
“They’re taking her statement.”
Then the officer looked toward Chloe.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“When officers searched the residence, they found the laptop.”
“Good.”
“They also found the red book behind the washing machine.”
Chloe squeezed my hand.
The officer’s expression became grim.
“What’s inside?”
He swallowed.
“Names. Dates. Addresses.”
“How many?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“How many?”
“Twenty-three children.”
I felt the room spin.
Twenty-three.
Then he continued.
“And beside several names there are initials.”
“What initials?”
He looked directly at me.
“M.R.”
My name was Marcus Reed.
I stopped breathing.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
But the officer wasn’t finished.
“There’s also a photograph clipped inside the back cover.”
He held out his phone.
It was a photograph another officer had taken as evidence.
I looked.
My mother stood in front of her house.
Much younger.
Beside her was Sarah.
Maybe nine years old.
And standing on Sarah’s other side was a little boy.
Seven or eight.
Dark hair.
Seattle Mariners sweatshirt.
Missing front tooth.
Me.
I stared at my childhood face.
Then I noticed what young Marcus was holding.
A red notebook.
The same red notebook Chloe had just described.
Written across the cover in thick black marker were three words:
HOUSE RULES — MARCUS.
My legs nearly buckled.
“That’s impossible.”
I didn’t remember that book.
I didn’t remember the room.
I didn’t remember stairs beneath my mother’s garage.
But suddenly, somewhere deep in my mind, a sound surfaced.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A child tapping from behind a wall.
And for the first time in more than thirty years, I remembered being terrified of Friday.
Not because of school.
Not because of punishment.
Because Friday…
was lockdown day.
And somewhere beneath my mother’s house was the reason my mind had spent most of my life trying desperately to forget………………
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
