Chapter 3

After leaving the scene, Gates and I split up. He headed back to the precinct to bang on a judge's door for a search warrant, while I stayed behind to canvass the neighborhood on Oak Street.

It was a textbook middle-class suburb. The lawns were manicured as smooth as golf courses, and every single mailbox on the block was polished to a shine.

I knocked on the door of 304, the house immediately to the left of the Pendletons, belonging to a Mrs. Wilson.

She was an enthusiastic housewife in her early sixties, even greeting me on her front porch holding a plate of freshly baked cookies.

"Oh, Arthur and Elaine? They are absolute model neighbors," Mrs. Wilson said, settling into her rocking chair with nothing but glowing praise. "Arthur is an accountant, and Elaine is incredibly devout. She even volunteers to prune the roses in the community garden. Although..."

She paused, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "They do have some odd habits. Like buying an obscene amount of air fresheners. And the television on their first floor is always turned up aggressively loud—just blasting that SpongeBob cartoon day and night.

"Is something wrong, though? I saw the cruisers parked out front."

"Unfortunately, there's been a death at the residence." I pulled out my notepad, locking eyes with her. "It involves their daughter."

The warm smile instantly died on Mrs. Wilson's face. Half a cookie slipped from her fingers, shattering on the wooden porch boards.

"Daughter?" Her eyes went wide. "What daughter?"

I stared at her, stunned. "They said she suffered from a severe illness and was entirely dependent on them. That she’s been kept at home where they cared for her."

"Officer, I've lived here for over a decade." Mrs. Wilson's voice began to tremble, her eyes darting fearfully toward the eerily quiet house next door. "In the last ten years, I have 'never' heard the word 'daughter' mentioned!"

"Their daughter's name is Grace. You... had absolutely no idea?"

"Grace?... Oh, wait, it's coming back to me. They haven't talked about that daughter of theirs in over ten years. Hell, I almost forgot they had one. Elaine claimed that if we even got near the house, her daughter would start screaming, so we never dared to intrude."

The manic cartoon blasting day and night. The heavy barrage of air fresheners attempting to mask a certain smell...

A violent, icy shiver snaked its way up my spine.

Refusing to let it go, I crossed the street and knocked on Mr. Smith's door. The retired dentist was out in his driveway, tinkering under the hood of his car.

"Grace? Oh, Lord, the pretty cheerleader?" Mr. Smith furrowed his brow, digging deep into his memory before it finally clicked.

"I remember now! She used to ride her bike up and down the street when she was younger. Then, one night, I heard this absolutely horrific screaming coming from across the road. The next day, Arthur nailed all the first-floor shutters completely shut. He told me the kid had some sort of mental breakdown and was sent to a closed-door residential clinic out of state. Why, is she back?"

"She's dead." I looked dead at Mr. Smith. "She never went out of state; she was kept locked inside that house. She died right there, on the living room couch behind those nailed-shut shutters."

Mr. Smith took a sharp intake of breath. The wrench slipped from his grip, clanking loudly against the car engine.

The old man’s lips physically shook. "What? That sweet girl was inside the house this whole time? And we just waved past those windows to Arthur every single day..."

The minute I got back to the precinct, I pulled every single social and medical file on Grace Pendleton.

The data glowing on my monitor made me forget to breathe.

Grace's trajectory through life had been brutally, cleanly severed at the age of sixteen.

Her final medical record wasn't some "neuromuscular atrophy diagnosis" like Arthur had claimed. It was an ER intake form.

On it was a single, hastily scribbled note left by the attending physician from that night:

[Patient presents with severe, defensive ligature marks on wrists and ankles. Parents refused in-depth examination. Discharged AMA (Against Medical Advice).]

No follow-up appointments. No pharmacy prescription logs. No insurance claims. Driver's license, bank accounts, social media footprint—all zeroes.

A living, breathing girl who used to dance in the sun as a cheerleader had, over the course of a single night at sixteen, been shoved into a vacuum-sealed jar by her loving parents. She had effectively been made "invisible" to society.

I leaned back heavily in my chair, the images of Arthur and Elaine’s agonizingly tear-stained faces flashing in my mind.

"Why did the neighbors almost completely forget her existence?" I muttered aloud to my empty desk. "Why did they only remember when I dropped her name?"

Right then, the office door violently swung open.

Gates strode in, clutching a search warrant in his hand.

"Let's go tear the masks off those perfect parents." Gates tossed me my jacket.

"The ME got preliminary results?" I asked, standing up.

"Not just that." Gates clenched his jaw. "What's worse—the coroner discovered something in her stomach... something no human should have inside them."