- PART 2: THE DEAD MAN WHO STILL HAD A KEY
- I knew that voice.
Two years of grief, two years of crying myself to sleep, and two years of visiting a grave that contained nothing but ashes. Yet the voice coming through that phone belonged to the man I had buried.
My husband, Arthur.
“Check the bottom drawer,” he said impatiently. “Clara never moves anything. She still thinks keeping my belongings untouched somehow keeps me alive.”
The woman laughed. - “Your wife is pathetic, Arthur. Two years, and she still wears her wedding ring.”
My fingers tightened around my phone beneath the bed. I wanted to scream, but something in his next words stopped my breathing.
“Find that document before Friday. Once the transfer goes through, Clara won’t have a house to come back to.”
The woman opened another drawer.
“And what about the insurance money?” - “Already handled. Three million dollars safely hidden where nobody can trace it.”
Three million dollars.
My mind raced back to the weeks following Arthur’s supposed accident. His life insurance company had denied my claim because of an alleged technical issue. I’d been too devastated to fight.
Now I understood why.
The woman suddenly stopped searching. - “Arthur, there’s something else. That old neighbor keeps hearing me when I come here. Yesterday, she threatened to call the police.”
“Then stop coming during the afternoon,” Arthur snapped. “And for God’s sake, stop arguing with the people you bring there.”
People?
My blood turned cold.
“That woman from Tuesday nearly escaped,” she whispered. “If she hadn’t seen your photograph on Clara’s dresser, none of this would’ve happened.” - Arthur went silent.
Then he asked a question that made my stomach twist.
“Did you take care of her?”
“She’s not going to talk.”
For several seconds, I couldn’t move. My husband wasn’t simply alive. He was hiding something far worse than insurance fraud.
Suddenly, the woman dropped a folder onto the floor.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“Clara’s name is still on the original property deed. Without her signature, we can’t complete the sale.”
Arthur cursed.
“Then we’ll get her signature.”
“How?”
A terrible silence followed.
Then Arthur answered calmly.
“The same way we got the others.”
My heart hammered against the floorboards.
I slowly opened my phone’s emergency dialer, but before I could press the call button, the woman received another message.
She read it aloud.
“Your husband says the security camera picked up movement near the patio door this morning.”
My blood froze.
The woman stopped breathing for a moment.
Then she whispered, “Arthur… Clara’s car left at eight.”
“I know,” he replied. “But someone came back.”
Her shoes turned toward my bed.
I squeezed my eyes shut as she approached.
One step.
Two steps.
Then she stopped directly beside my face.
I watched her knees bend as she began lowering herself toward the floor.
Before she could look underneath, the front doorbell rang.
She straightened immediately.
“Who’s that?” Arthur demanded through the speaker.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t answer it.”
But the bell rang again, followed by a woman’s voice.
“Clara? It’s Mrs. Gable! Your back gate is open!”
For the first time that morning, I felt a flicker of hope.
The stranger hurried downstairs, muttering angrily. I heard the front door open, followed by a sharp exchange of words.
Then a terrible crash echoed through the hallway.
Someone screamed.
I scrambled out from beneath the bed and rushed toward the bedroom window.
What I saw outside made my knees nearly buckle.
A black SUV was parked across the street.
Standing beside it, holding a cellphone, was Arthur.
My supposedly dead husband.
He looked older, thinner, and completely alive.
But the worst part wasn’t seeing him.
It was realizing he was staring directly at my bedroom window.
Our eyes met.
For one horrifying second, neither of us moved.
Then Arthur slowly smiled.
My phone vibrated.
A text message appeared from a number I hadn’t seen in two years.
“Hello, sweetheart. I was wondering when you’d finally figure it out.”
Before I could react, another message arrived.
“Don’t call the police. If you want to know what really happened to the woman who screamed in your house, look inside the locked cabinet in the basement.”
I stared at the screen, trembling.
Because there was one detail Arthur apparently didn’t know.
Three months before his supposed death, I’d secretly changed the basement cabinet lock.
And the only person who had ever known what I kept inside was my late mother.
Whatever Arthur thought was hidden down there, I was suddenly terrified to discover it.
Then, from somewhere beneath my feet, I heard three slow knocks.
Someone was inside my basement.
And a woman’s trembling voice called out a name I hadn’t heard since my childhood.
“Clara… please don’t let him know I’m still alive.” - TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3…
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CLICK HERE CONTINUE TO READ PART 3 – My neighbor heard a woman screaming inside my empty house. So I hid and waited.
PART 2 – My neighbor heard a woman screaming inside my empty house. So I hid and waited.
