Chapter 3 - The Drive Back to Elm Street
The sirens wailed through the quiet suburban streets of Oakridge, splitting the gray afternoon rain with a piercing urgency.
Ethan sat in the passenger seat of an unmarked police cruiser driven by Detective Marcus Vance—an old college acquaintance who had happened to be attending a nearby family memorial and intercepted Ethan's emergency call within seconds.
"The local magistrate is already signing the emergency search and seizure warrant," Marcus said, his eyes fixed on the road ahead as he blew through a red light with lights and sirens flashing. "Ethan, I have to ask you... how long was Lauren missing?"
"Three days," Ethan said, staring blankly out the smeared windshield. The rain beat a relentless tattoo against the glass. "Three agonizing, endless days. Claire was the one who called me on Monday morning. She said she stopped by the house to drop off mail, found the side door unlocked, and found Lauren... found her upstairs in the guest bedroom, cold and unresponsive."
"And you didn't check the body?"
"The paramedics were already there when I arrived," Ethan whispered, the guilt suffocating him. "Claire had called them. Dr. Sterling arrived ten minutes later. They told me she suffered a massive, catastrophic cerebral aneurysm in her sleep. There was no sign of struggle. Her face was peaceful. They... they wrapped her in a sheet before I could fully process it. Claire handled the funeral home. She said it would spare me the trauma."
"She isolated you," Marcus muttered, gripping the steering wheel tighter. "Classic behavioral pattern. She managed the narrative from minute one so you wouldn't look anywhere near the house."
"If she’s down there..." Ethan couldn't finish the sentence. The image of Noah knocking on the white coffin flashed through his mind, followed by the memory of the three slow knocks against the basement wood.
Thump, thump, thump... thump, thump.
If Lauren had been locked in that concrete cellar for seventy-two hours without food, without water, while her own family prepared a fake funeral and buried an empty or substituted casket...
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Ethan’s knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists inside his coat pockets.
The cruiser turned hard onto Elm Street, tires screaming against the asphalt, and slammed to a halt directly behind two black-and-white police cruisers already blocking the driveway of the Blake family home.
