PART 3: THE MAN WHO LIVED NEXT DOOR
“Evan, don’t listen to her.”
The elderly woman stood at the top of the basement stairs.
Snow covered the shoulders of her burgundy coat.
Officer Reynolds immediately reached for his weapon.
“Stay where you are,” he ordered.
The woman raised both hands.
“My name is Ruth Keller.”
Natalie’s voice came through my phone.
“No,” she whispered. “My grandmother is dead.”
Ruth stared at the phone.
Her expression changed.
“Ask Natalie where she is.”
“Natalie, where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Are you alone?”
She began crying again.
“Just leave the house, Evan.”
“Did someone tell you to say Ruth was dead?”
Silence.
“Natalie?”
A man spoke in the background.
“That’s enough.”
The call disconnected.
I tried calling back.
The number was unavailable.
Officer Reynolds climbed two steps toward Ruth.
“How did you enter this house?”
“The side door was open.”
“It was being watched.”
“Apparently not very well.”
Reynolds didn’t appreciate that answer.
He guided Ruth down the stairs and asked another officer to search her shopping bag.
They found tea, a wallet, an old photograph, and a folded newspaper clipping.
Nothing that could be used as a weapon.
Reynolds examined the identification in her wallet.
The name said Ruth Keller.

The birth date made her eighty-one years old.
“This license was issued three years ago,” he said.
Ruth nodded.
“My granddaughter is being forced to repeat a lie.”
“What lie?”
“That I died twelve years ago.”
I held up my phone.
“She sounded terrified.”
“Because Victor was standing beside her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“He used the same words with Caroline.”
Ruth’s voice cracked when she said her daughter’s name.
Reynolds unfolded the newspaper clipping.
It was an obituary.
Ruth Keller.
Beloved wife of the late Harold Keller.
Mother of Caroline Mercer.
Grandmother of Natalie Mercer.
According to the date, Ruth had died twelve years earlier after suffering a stroke.
The photograph beside the obituary showed a younger version of the woman standing in front of us.
“You have an obituary,” Reynolds said.
“Many living people do.”
“Explain.”
“My son-in-law needed me legally dead.”
“Why?”
“To control the family trust.”
Ruth pointed toward the metal box inside the hidden room.
“The real documents are in there.”
Reynolds stepped closer to her.
“You expect us to believe someone declared you dead without a body?”
“There was a body.”
Nobody spoke.
Ruth lowered her eyes.
“A woman about my age died in a private care facility. Victor identified her as me.”
“How could he do that?”
“He owned part of the facility through another company.”
Reynolds studied her face.
“And where were you?”
“In another facility under my maiden name.”
“You were held there for twelve years?”
“For eight.”
“How did you get out?”
“A nurse discovered my records had been changed. She helped me contact an attorney.”
“Then why didn’t you go to the police?”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“My medical history said I had dementia. Victor had papers showing I was confused, unstable, and dangerous. Every accusation I made became further proof that I was sick.”
Her voice remained calm.

That calmness made her story more frightening.
“Why did you disappear for the last four years?” I asked.
“I stopped trying to convince people who had already decided I was dead.”
“But you contacted Natalie.”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Did she believe you?”
“Not at first.”
“Then why did she meet you Monday?”
“Because I told her something only her grandmother could know.”
“What?”
Ruth looked at me.
“When Natalie was nine, she broke a blue glass bird in my bedroom. She was afraid her grandfather would be angry, so she buried the pieces beneath the maple tree. Harold saw her do it, but he never said a word. He bought another bird and told her glass sometimes heals itself overnight.”
I remembered a small blue bird on the shelf in our bedroom.
Natalie had carried it through every apartment we ever rented.
She told me it was the last gift her grandmother gave her before she died.
“If Natalie knows you’re alive, why did she just deny it?”
“Because Victor made her.”
Reynolds pointed toward the hidden room.
“Let’s examine the box.”
The metal box was locked, but the same brass key opened it.
Inside were dozens of folders wrapped in plastic.
The first contained the original Keller family trust.
The second held property records.
The third contained copies of bank transfers totaling more than two million dollars.
Each transfer had been authorized with Ruth’s signature after the date listed in her obituary.
“She was legally dead when these were signed,” Reynolds said.
“Exactly,” Ruth replied.
Another folder contained medical records from Hawthorne Ridge Care Center.
The patient’s name was Sarah Cole.
A photograph had been attached to the first page.
It was Ruth.
Across the top, someone had written:
NO VISITORS. PATIENT SUFFERS FROM VIOLENT DELUSIONS.
Ruth turned away.
I opened another envelope.
Inside was a handwritten statement from Harold.
If you are reading this, Victor has discovered that I kept copies.
Caroline did not leave her daughter voluntarily.
She was preparing to report him.
If anything happens to me, protect Natalie.
My hands began trembling.
There were two signatures at the bottom.
Harold Keller.
And Frank Walters.
I stared at the second name.
“That’s my neighbor.”
Ruth grabbed the document.
“Who?”
“Frank Walters. He lives next door.”
The color drained from her face.
“How long has he lived there?”
“About ten months.”
“Describe him.”
“Late sixties. Gray beard. Thin. Wears glasses.”
“Does he have a scar near his right ear?”
I thought about it.
Frank usually wore a cap pulled low.
But I remembered seeing a pale line behind his ear when he helped me repair the backyard fence.
“Yes.”
Ruth nearly dropped the document.
Officer Reynolds noticed.
“You know him?”
Ruth looked toward the basement window facing Frank’s house.
“Frank Walters died sixteen years ago.”

A cold pressure filled my chest.
“That’s impossible. I spoke to him this morning.”
“The real Frank was Harold’s friend. He witnessed that statement.”
“Then who lives next door?”
Ruth backed away from the window.
“Victor.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my mind refused to accept it.
“Natalie would recognize her own father.”
“Victor looked different before his supposed death. He was heavier. No beard. No glasses.”
“He has lived beside us for ten months.”
“That’s why Natalie became frightened.”
I remembered the night Frank moved in.
He had brought over a bottle of wine and introduced himself.
Natalie took one look at him and dropped her glass.
She said it had slipped.
For months afterward, she kept the curtains closed on that side of the house.
I had asked why.
She said she wanted more privacy.
Another memory returned.
Three weeks earlier, Natalie saw Frank standing at the end of our driveway.
She turned the car around and didn’t come home for two hours.
When I asked where she had gone, she said she needed air.
“She recognized him,” I said.
“Not immediately,” Ruth replied. “But something about his voice bothered her. Then she saw the scar.”
Officer Reynolds spoke into his radio.
He ordered two officers to approach Frank’s house.
No one answered the front door.
His truck was still parked in the driveway.
The officers checked the windows.
The house appeared empty.
Mike, the contractor, called us back to the hidden room.
“You need to see this.”
He pointed toward a bundle of wires running through the rear wall.
“These aren’t old.”
“What do they connect to?” Reynolds asked.
“We’d have to follow them, but they’re heading toward the neighboring property.”
“Cameras?” I asked.
“Possibly.”
Mike removed a loose section of wood.
Behind it was a narrow passage barely wide enough for a person to crawl through.
Fresh mud covered the floor.
The passage traveled beneath the side yard.
Directly toward Frank’s house.
Reynolds aimed his flashlight inside.
A pair of orange snow boots sat near the entrance.
The same boots Frank had worn that morning.
“He didn’t stay off my property,” I said.
Frank had pretended to examine the depression from the sidewalk.
But his boots were already beneath my house.
“He knew about the collapse before I called him.”
A terrible realization struck me.
The headlights I saw at two in the morning might not have come from the street.
They could have come from Frank’s driveway.
Reynolds sent an officer through the passage while the others entered Frank’s house through an unlocked rear door.
Ruth, Mike, and I were ordered to remain in my basement.
Ten minutes later, Reynolds returned.
“Mr. Brooks, I need you to identify something.”

He led me outside.
The snow between our houses had been disturbed by police footprints.
Frank’s back door stood open.
Inside, the house looked completely normal.
Clean kitchen.
Old furniture.
Family photographs.
A half-finished cup of coffee sat on the counter.
Then Reynolds opened the basement door.
The room below looked nothing like the rest of the house.
Six monitors covered one wall.
Each displayed a different part of my property.
My driveway.
My backyard.
My living room.
My bedroom.
The hidden room beneath the porch.
Someone had been watching Natalie and me inside our own home.
I stepped closer to the bedroom screen.
The camera angle came from the ceiling vent.
I remembered Frank offering to clean our air ducts the month after he moved in.
He said retired inspectors got bored.
I had let him spend an entire afternoon inside the house.
“He installed the cameras,” I said.
On a desk beneath the monitors were photographs, documents, and several mobile phones.
Reynolds picked up a driver’s license.
The photograph showed Frank without his beard.
The name was Victor Mercer.
A second identification called him Frank Walters.
A third called him Daniel Price.
All three had different birth dates.
Ruth stared at the photograph.
“That’s him.”
I felt sick.
For ten months, Natalie’s supposedly dead father had waved to us across the driveway.
He had borrowed my tools.
He had eaten hamburgers at our summer cookout.
He had stood in my kitchen and complimented Natalie’s cooking.
Every time he looked at her, he knew exactly who she was.
Reynolds opened a drawer.
Inside was Natalie’s missing silver necklace.
A small amount of blood stained the broken clasp.
“We’re treating this as an abduction,” he said.
Another officer hurried down the stairs.
“We found the sedan.”
“Where?”
“Abandoned near the old water-treatment plant.”
“Any sign of the woman?”
“No, but there’s blood on the back seat.”
My knees weakened.
Ruth caught my arm.
“Victor won’t hurt her until he has the box.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because Natalie is his only way to control you.”
“Why me?”
“You own the house.”

“I don’t care about the house.”
“But legally, everything found beneath it belongs to you until a court decides otherwise.”
I looked toward the documents we had carried from the hidden room.
“What does he want?”
“Not the money records.”
“Then what?”
Ruth searched through the folders.
Her movements became faster.
More desperate.
Finally, she looked up.
“There should be a red envelope.”
“There wasn’t.”
“Harold put it inside the box.”
“What was in it?”
“Evidence showing what Victor did to Caroline.”
“Your daughter?”
“And proof that she survived.”
I stared at Ruth.
“You said her body was never found.”
“Because she wasn’t in the car.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. Harold believed Victor kept her alive somewhere.”
“For more than twenty years?”
Ruth wiped tears from her face.
“As long as Caroline was alive, Victor could force her to sign whatever he needed.”
One of the monitors suddenly went black.
Then another.
Then all six screens flickered.
A video appeared on the center monitor.
Natalie sat tied to a chair inside a concrete room.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
Her eyes were open.
She was alive.
“Natalie!” I rushed toward the screen.
She couldn’t hear me.
A digital clock on the wall behind her showed the current time.
The video was live.
A man stepped into view.
Frank.
Victor.
My neighbor removed his glasses and pulled off his gray beard.
Without the disguise, I could see the face from Natalie’s old family photographs.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Hello, Evan.”
His voice came through a speaker beneath the desk.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Ruth leaned toward the monitor.
“Victor, where is Natalie?”
He smiled.
“Hello, Ruth. You look remarkably healthy for a dead woman.”
“Let her go.”

“Bring me Harold’s red envelope.”
“We don’t have it.”
His smile disappeared.
“Then find it.”
“Where are you?” Reynolds demanded.
Victor ignored him.
“You have sixty minutes, Evan. Come alone.”
“To where?”
“The place where Caroline’s car entered the river.”
A second light switched on inside the concrete room.
Another chair stood beside Natalie.
A thin woman with long gray hair was tied to it.
Her face was bruised.
Her clothing hung loosely from her body.
Ruth made a sound like all the air had been torn from her lungs.
She pressed both hands against the monitor.
“Caroline.”
The woman slowly lifted her head.
Even after more than twenty years, she looked like the photograph of Natalie’s mother.
Natalie turned toward her and whispered one word.
“Mom?”
Victor stepped between them.
“Bring me the red envelope,” he said, “or you’ll watch them both disappear.”
The screen went black.
At that exact moment, my phone received a photograph.
It showed the frozen river outside Cleveland.
Two chairs sat near a hole cut into the ice.
Beneath the picture was a message.
FIFTY-NINE MINUTES.
Then Ruth grabbed my arm.
“Evan, the red envelope was never inside the box.”
“Where is it?”
She looked toward my house through the basement window.
“Harold hid it inside the blue glass bird.”
And the bird was sitting on the shelf in the bedroom where Victor had installed a camera….

Click Here to continue read next: PART4: At the grocery store, I paid for an elderly woman’s food. Before we went our separate ways, she leaned closer and whispered