It was no longer a retirement home.
It was a crime scene.
Then came Margaret.
He saw the pink fabric and froze.
He didn't scream.
This silence was even worse.
"These are Lily's," he whispered. "I made these flowers with her."
Hours later, an officer found a brown notebook hidden inside an old pillowcase.
Detective Bennett opened it.
His expression changed.
Then he looked at the rear window.
"There is a shed in the garden," he said.
The officers stormed the castle at midnight.
In the shed, they found a door hidden under a few wooden planks.
And underneath…
A staircase leading into the darkness.😨💔
PART 2
Noah stood in the courtyard and could not move.
The rain had stopped, but water was still dripping from the shed roof. The whole building smelled of wet wood, mud, and something old that had been sitting there for far too long.
Margaret began to tremble.
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Please, no…’
Daniel held her tightly in his arms, but he, too, seemed about to collapse at any moment.
The first two officers fell to the ground.
Detective Claire Bennett followed them with a flashlight.
The trapdoor remained open.
Noah stared at the black staircase and, for a terrible moment, felt like a seven-year-old again.
In treatment.
I am listening.
In the hope that someone would say it was all a mistake.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then three.
No one said anything.
Even the neighbors behind the fence remained silent.
Finally, Detective Bennett's voice sounded from downstairs.
Calm.
Trembling.
— Don't let the family come here.
Margaret collapsed in Daniel's arms.
Noah didn't have to see anything.
He had already understood.
Lily had never run away from home.
He had never left the city.
She had been there all this time.
At the same place where the family had eaten on Sunday.
In the same courtyard where the children were playing.
Under the house of the man they called grandfather.
The search lasted three days.
Every evening, the police lights flickered on and off at Harold's old house. Journalists arrived. More officers arrived. Then came the officers from the state scientific laboratory. The warehouse became the center of everything the city had ignored for fifteen years.
Margherita said nothing.
She sat in Lily’s room, held the pink fabric in her hands, and repeatedly ran her thumb over the three small white flowers.
The truth slowly came to light.
And every aspect of it destroyed her even further.
The fabric was Lily's.
Just like the other things found under the shed.
A bracelet.
A hair clip.
A school notebook.
A silver necklace that Margaret had given her for her sixteenth birthday.
But it was Harold's notebook that ultimately destroyed the family more than anything else.
He had written everything down.
It is not a confession.
Not with guilt.
But as routine.
Details.
Time.
Short, cold sentences.
Detective Bennett told them cautiously what had happened, but there was no subtle way to say it.
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