The following day, I acted normally.
I cooked dinner.
I helped Emma with her homework.
I smiled when Evan came home.
But inside, I was terrified.
That night, I checked the camera again.
Nothing.
The next night, nothing.
Then, just after midnight on Friday, movement appeared.
This time, Evan didn't enter Emma's bedroom.
He went downstairs.
I watched him walk into the basement.
He stopped beside an old storage cabinet.
Then he unlocked it.
My heart began pounding.
Evan had always told me that the cabinet contained old family documents and things belonging to his childhood.
The camera couldn't see inside.
But after several minutes, he emerged holding a small cardboard box.
He sat on the basement floor.
Then he opened it.
Inside were photographs.
I couldn't see them clearly.
But one image caught my attention.
A little girl.
Dark hair.
Approximately Emma's age.
I froze.
I remembered Evan telling me about his younger sister.
The girl who had disappeared when they were children.
The girl whose disappearance had supposedly never been solved.
I watched him turn the photographs over one by one.
Then he pulled out a folded newspaper clipping.
Even through the grainy footage, I could make out a photograph.
A missing child.
A date from decades earlier.
And beneath it, a name.
Nora Brooks.
Evan's sister.
I began wondering whether the story he had told me about Nora was true.
But then the recording showed something I hadn't expected.
Evan wasn't alone.
A shadow moved across the basement doorway.
Someone else was there.
I replayed the footage.
The figure appeared for only two seconds.
Tall.
Thin.
Then gone.
I couldn't identify the person.
My first thought was that someone had entered the house.
My second thought was worse.
Maybe someone had never left.
I called my sister, Megan, the next morning.
I didn't tell her everything.
I simply said I was frightened and needed somewhere to take Emma.
She told me to come immediately.
Before leaving, I checked Emma's room.
The object Evan had placed beneath her pillow was still there.
I picked it up.
It was an old brass key.
On the key was a tiny engraved number:
17.
I had no idea what it opened.
But Evan did.
When he came home that afternoon and saw the key missing from Emma's room, his face changed completely.
“Where did you get that?” he asked.