Chapter 5 - THE MAN IN THE BASEMENT
His name was Eric Vaughn.
I knew him.
Not well.
But I knew him.
Rachel had introduced him to me eighteen months earlier as a “family friend.”
He repaired HVAC systems.
He had been in my house at least four times.
Maybe more.
I remember shaking his hand.
I remember buying him a beer.
I remember thanking him for fixing our upstairs air conditioner.
That memory made me want to throw up.
Ortiz showed me a still image from the basement video.
Eric standing near the mattress.
Rachel beside him.
Lily in the corner holding Tommy.
“What are they doing?”
“We’re still reviewing it.”
“Show me.”
“Mark—”
“Show me.”
He hesitated.
Then turned the laptop.
The video had no sound at first.
Rachel carried Tommy into the room.
Eric followed.
Lily walked behind them.
Rachel pointed to the mattress.
Lily shook her head.
Rachel grabbed her arm.
I stood up.
“Stop.”
Ortiz paused it.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I need a second.”
I walked to the wall.
Put both hands against it.
Then Lily’s voice floated through my head.
I tried to keep Tommy safe.
I turned around.
“Play it.”
The audio came on.
Rachel’s voice.
“If you behave, we’ll be back before dinner.”
Lily cried.
“Mommy, please.”
“Enough.”
“What if Tommy wakes up?”
“He won’t.”
Then Rachel held up a medicine syringe.
Blue liquid inside.
My vision blurred.
Eric said, “Give him less this time.”
Rachel snapped, “I know what I’m doing.”
Lily rushed toward her brother.
“No!”
Rachel shoved her away.
Not hard enough to knock her down.
Hard enough to make my hands curl into fists.
Then Eric looked directly at the camera.
“We need to delete these every week.”
The video ended.
I stared at the screen.
“Why were they doing this?”
Ortiz shook his head.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Where were they going?”
“We’re tracing phones.”
The answer came an hour later.
A hotel.
Not local.
Forty minutes away.
Rachel and Eric had been meeting there for months.
Affair.
Of course.
It seemed almost small compared to everything else.
The affair didn’t break me.
The basement did.
The drugs did.
My daughter dragging my son across the floor broke me.
At 2:00 a.m., CPS issued an emergency protective order.
Rachel could not contact the children.
Police detained her.
Eric was nowhere to be found.
At 2:37 a.m., Tommy woke.
I was beside his hospital crib.
His eyes opened slowly.
“Hey, buddy.”
I touched his tiny hand.
He wrapped his fingers around mine.
I started crying.
Quietly.
Embarrassingly.
I didn’t care.
Then Dana entered.
“Mark?”
I wiped my face.
“Yeah?”
“We spoke with Lily again.”
I looked toward the door.
“Did she say more?”
Dana nodded.
“She says sometimes Rachel and Eric left them downstairs overnight.”
My chest tightened.
“How many times?”
“She doesn’t understand dates.”
“Of course she doesn’t.”
“But she said something else.”
“What?”
Dana sat across from me.
“She said there was another child.”
I stared at her.
“What another child?”
“She called him ‘the quiet boy.’”
My blood went cold.
“Where is he?”
May you like
Dana’s expression told me she didn’t know.
Then she said, “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
