Chapter 12 - The Ghost of Blackwood
The words hung in the cold, ozone-filled air like a physical blow.
"First wife?" Evelyn stammered, her mind struggling to process the revelation. "Ethan... Ethan said his first wife died in a car crash seven years ago! He showed me the obituary!"
Sarah let out a hollow, bitter laugh, wiping a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her gray sweater.
"Ethan and Clara paid off the medical examiner," Sarah said, her voice trembling with historical trauma. "They staged the crash on the coastal highway. They declared me dead, paid for an empty casket, and locked me away."
Evelyn felt a wave of pure, sickening horror wash over her. "Locked you away? Where?!"
Sarah pointed a shaking finger down at the concrete floor beneath their feet.
"In the subterranean storage cellar beneath this utility room," Sarah whispered. "For seven years, Evelyn. Seven years in the dark. Clara fed me once a day. They kept me alive to monitor their security network... to manage their private server... because I was a network engineer before I married Ethan."
"My God..." Evelyn gasped, her hands trembling violently. "Why didn't you escape?!"
"Because every time I tried, Ethan threatened to hurt my family," Sarah wept quietly. "He told me he would destroy everyone I loved. So I stayed in the dark. I watched him bring you into this house four years ago. I watched you have Lily. And every single day, I prayed you would see the truth before it was too late."
Outside the steel door, a heavy metallic clinking sound echoed through the hallway. Ethan was using a crowbar from his garage tool kit, jammed violently into the door frame, trying to pry the heavy deadbolt open.
CREAK. BANG.
"Evelyn!" Ethan screamed from outside. "I am coming in! Do you hear me?!"
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Sarah looked at Evelyn, her tear-streaked face hardening into a look of absolute, vengeful determination.
"He thinks he controls this house because he has the master key," Sarah said, reaching out to grab a heavy steel wrench resting on the workbench. "But I built the system, Evelyn. I built the backdoors."
