Chapter 4 - THREE TAPS
Maya refused to sit anywhere she couldn’t see Leo’s room.
Sarah tried a chair beside the nurses’ station.
Maya shook her head.
“What if they move him?”
“We’ll go with him.”
“What if we’re asleep?”
David crouched in front of her.
“One of us will stay awake.”
He knew it wasn’t a promise they could keep forever.
That night, it was the only promise that mattered.
Leo woke in short, frightened bursts. A cart rattled outside and he pulled the blanket over his face. Someone dimmed the room and he begged them to turn the light back on.
Sarah asked the nurse to leave a lamp burning.
Nobody argued.
Near midnight, Maya stood beside the bed.
“Can I do it?”
Leo looked at her.
She tapped the plastic bed rail three times.
His mouth trembled.
Then he answered.
Three taps.
David leaned forward.
“What is that?”
“Our wall game,” Maya said. “When I couldn’t sleep.”
Their bedrooms at home shared a wall.
David remembered hearing little knocks years ago and telling them to settle down.
He had never asked what they meant.
“What did the taps say?” Sarah asked.
Maya kept her eyes on Leo.
“I’m here.”
Leo nodded.
David left the room and made it halfway to the restroom before he had to brace both hands against the wall.
Reyes found him there a few minutes later.
“The space under Elena’s living room was built into the slope,” she said. “It used to be an unfinished storage area. She enclosed part of it.”
“How long?”
“We’re still working that out.”
“The house is new.”
“She took possession four months ago.”
David looked up.
“Then where was he before that?”
Reyes didn’t answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
“There was a mattress,” she said. “Water containers. Food packaging. We’re documenting everything.”
David pressed his knuckles against his mouth.
“He heard us walking over him.”
Reyes let the silence stand.
Then she showed him a photograph.
It pictured the inside of the pantry entrance.
A latch.
A lock.
Both on the outside.
“He couldn’t open it,” she said.
David stared until the picture blurred.
Back in Leo’s room, Sarah was sitting on the bed while Maya slept against her side.
Leo watched David enter.
“Did she go home?” he whispered.
“No. The police took her.”
His son studied his face, testing the words.
Then he asked, “Did they take the other key too?”
David stopped beside the bed.
May you like
“What other key?”
“The one Grandpa keeps.”
