Chapter 3 - The Sledgehammer Decision
Officer Harrison radioed dispatch for forensic backup and heavy entry tools while keeping his weapon drawn on the stepmother.
"Mr. Vance, I need you and the children to step out into the driveway right now," Detective Miller ordered with calm authority.
"I am not leaving this hallway until I see what is behind that wall," David declared, his voice vibrating with a terrifying, quiet rage.
Ethan looked at his father, his dark eyes brimming with tears he had suppressed through years of quiet torture under Evelyn’s thumb.
"Dad, she used to lock us in the basement whenever you went on business trips to Chicago," Ethan confessed, his voice breaking.
"She told us if we said anything about the renovations three years ago, she’d make us disappear like Mom."
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David felt a cold, jagged spike of ice pierce his heart as he looked from his son to the emerald-clad woman standing in police custody.
The heavy front doors swung open again as fire department responders carried a yellow sledgehammer into the narrow, grand hallway.
