I knew something was wrong the moment I heard Lily scream.
“No! I’m not going!”
Her voice came from inside the garage.
I dropped everything and ran.
When I pushed open the door, Richard was trying to force our daughter into the back seat of his car.
Lily had both hands wrapped around the doorframe.
“Get in the car!” Richard shouted.
He pulled her away.
She grabbed the frame again.
Then he shoved her into the seat.
“Dad!”
That one word was enough.
Richard reached for the garage-door remote.
The door started coming down.
I ducked underneath and caught it before it closed.
“Step away from her.”
Richard froze.
Slowly, he turned toward me.
There was something in his expression I had never seen before.
Not anger.
Not surprise.
Something colder.
“You’re too late,” he said.
I didn’t know what he meant.
I didn’t have time to ask.
Richard came at me.
He swung first.
I moved before I had time to think.
Seconds later, he was bent across the hood of his own car, one arm pinned behind his back.
“Stay down.”
Behind me, the rear door flew open.
Lily scrambled out and ran straight into my arms.
She was shaking.
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
“No…”
I looked over her face and arms, searching for any sign that Richard had injured her.
Then Lily stopped trembling.
Her eyes moved past me.
Toward the back of the car.
Her face changed.
“Dad…”
“What?”
She raised one hand and pointed.
At the trunk.
“Someone’s in there.”
Everything went silent.
I stared at the car.
Richard stopped struggling beneath me.
Then—
Knock.
A second passed.
Knock.
Lily grabbed my shirt.
Then came the third.
Knock.
Three slow knocks from inside the trunk.
I looked down at Richard.
“Who is it?”
He didn’t answer.
“Richard. Who is in your trunk?”
For the first time since I entered that garage, the confidence disappeared from his face.
His skin went pale.
And suddenly I understood something that frightened me more than anything that had happened so far.
Richard wasn’t scared of me.
He wasn’t scared of being caught.
He was scared of whoever was inside that trunk.
Then a muffled voice came from behind us.
“Please…”
Lily squeezed my arm.
I reached toward the trunk release.
Richard’s head snapped up.
“No!”
I stopped.
His eyes were wide with panic.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Another knock sounded from inside.
This one was weaker.
I looked at Lily.
Then at Richard.
And finally at the trunk.
Whatever secret he had been trying to drive away with that night…
I was about to open it.
