Chapter 41: Strength Training

I pressed my ear harder against the drywall. The sound came again, a desperate, rhythmic scratching, like a mouse trapped in the walls.

*Scratch. Scratch. Thump.*

"Mrs. Gable?" I whispered.

"Get me out."

Her voice was muffled, filtered through layers of insulation and plaster, but it was there. She wasn't dead. Mark had lied.

"Where are you?" I asked, my fingers tracing the cold surface of the wall.

"The crawlspace," she rasped. "Behind the closet. He... he dragged me."

My mind raced. The crawlspace ran the length of the second floor, connecting the master bedroom to the guest room. Mark must have intercepted her on the porch, knocked her out, and dumped her in the access panel in the hallway closet. It was closer than the woods. Lazier.

Or maybe he just didn't have time to dig a grave.

"Are you hurt?"

"My leg," she groaned. "He pushed me. I think it's broken."

I closed my eyes, a wave of nausea rolling over me. I had dragged an old woman into this nightmare. But guilt was a luxury I couldn't afford.

"Listen to me," I said, leaning close to the wall. "I'm locked in the bedroom. They took my phone. They took Lily."

"I know," she said. "I heard them. Talking about... a plane. Tomorrow morning."

Tomorrow. The timeline had shifted. Friday was too far away. They were running now.

"Mrs. Gable, do you have your phone?"

"He took it," she said. "Smashed it."

We were both trapped. Both silenced.

But Mrs. Gable was in the walls. And the walls connected everything.

"Can you move?" I asked.

"Barely."

"I need you to get to the guest room," I said. "The crawlspace goes all the way through. There's a vent in there. Above the crib."

"Why?"

"Because that's where they're keeping Lily," I said, my voice cracking. "And that's where Nadia is."

"Who is Nadia?"

"The woman with the scar. She's... she's the muscle. But she's greedy. She wants money."

I remembered the conversation in the basement. Nadia wasn't loyal to Elena. She was a mercenary. And mercenaries could be bought.

"What do you want me to do?" Mrs. Gable asked.

"I need you to make noise," I said. "When I tell you. I need you to make so much noise that they think the house is coming down."

"I can do that," she said, a grim determination in her voice. "I was head of the PTA for twenty years. I know how to make a racket."

"Good. Wait for my signal."

"What signal?"

"Three knocks," I said. "Like the doorbell."

I pulled away from the wall. The plan was thin, desperate, held together by duct tape and adrenaline. But it was all I had.

I looked at Sarah's dead phone. It was still rebooting, the Apple logo mocking me.

I didn't need it to make a call. I needed it to be a distraction.

I unplugged it. I walked to the door.

I listened. Silence downstairs. They were probably packing. Shredding documents. Erasing their lives.

I knelt by the door. I slid the phone under the gap, pushing it as far into the hallway as I could.

Then I went back to the closet.

I sat down. I breathed.

And I waited.

Ten minutes passed. Twenty.

Then, footsteps. Heavy. Angry.

Mark.

He stopped outside the door. I heard him bend down.

"What the..." he muttered.

He had found the phone.

I stood up. I walked to the wall.

I knocked.

*Thump. Thump. Thump.*

For a second, nothing happened.

Then, from deep inside the walls, a sound erupted. A banging, clanging, metallic racket, like someone beating a pipe with a hammer.

"What is that?" Mark yelled.

"It's the pipes!" Chloe shouted from downstairs. "The boiler!"

"It's coming from the walls!"

The noise intensified. Mrs. Gable was earning her PTA stripes.

"Elara!" Mark pounded on the door. "What are you doing in there?"

"Nothing!" I screamed back. "The house is shaking!"

The banging moved. It traveled along the wall, past my room, down the hall. Toward the guest room.

"It's moving," Mark whispered.

He ran down the hall.

"Nadia!" he shouted. "Open the door!"

I pressed my ear to the wood. I heard the guest room door open.

"What is going on?" Nadia's voice. Annoyed.

"Something's in the walls," Mark said.

"It's probably rats," Nadia drawled. "Big ones."

"It sounds like a person," Mark said.

And then, Mrs. Gable played her ace.

From the vent above the crib, a voice boomed out, magnified by the metal ductwork.

"Elena Rostova! You are under arrest!"

It was a bluff. A beautiful, senile bluff.

But in the chaos, in the guilt-ridden panic of their minds, it sounded real.

"They found us," Chloe shrieked from the stairs. "Run!"

"Grab the baby!" Mark yelled.

I heard a scuffle. A cry. Lily.

"No!" I screamed, throwing myself at the door.

It held.

But then I heard a new sound. A sharp, distinct *click*.

The sound of a lock turning.

Not my door.

The guest room door.

Nadia had locked them out.

"Nadia!" Chloe screamed, pounding on the wood. "Open this door! We have to go!"

"Price just went up," Nadia's voice came through the wall, calm and cold. "Way up."

She wasn't running. She was negotiating.

And she had the only bargaining chip that mattered.