Chapter 11 - The Third Key
The interrogation room seemed to spin on its axis. Mark lunged forward, the steel chain of his handcuffs rattling violently against the bolt. "Vanished? What do you mean they vanished? Where is Elena? Where is Lily?"
"The tactical team left a secured watch detail outside the property," Arthur Vance said, his voice urgent as he rushed toward the door. "Doors were locked from the inside. No signs of forced entry. But when they cleared the kitchen five minutes ago, Mrs. Evans and the little girl were gone. The basement door was wide open, and your father is missing too."
"And Leo?" Mark shouted desperately, the panic tearing his throat raw. "What about my son? Was Leo still there?"
Vance stopped in the doorway, turning back with a grim, chilling look in his eyes. "Leo was sitting at the kitchen table alone, coloring in a notebook. When the officers asked him where his mother and sister went, he didn't say a word. He just pointed to the table."
Mark didn't wait to be escorted. He slammed his fists against the metal table, the raw terror fueling a primal strength he didn't know he possessed. "Take me back there. Now!"
Thirty minutes later, Mark's police transport cruiser pulled up to the curb of his suburban home. The flashing red and blue lights painted the walls of the house in an eerie, pulsing glow. Yellow police tape fluttered wildly in the cold evening wind across the front porch.
Mark was escorted out of the cruiser by two armed officers, his handcuffs still secured. As he stepped through the front door and entered the kitchen, the familiar sight made his stomach twist into knots.
The kitchen was dead silent. The fluorescent light buzzed faintly overhead. And there, sitting right in the center of the wooden kitchen table, next to Lily's empty ceramic bowl, sat three identical golden keys arranged in a perfect triangle.
Leo sat alone at the table, wearing his faded green hoodie. He was holding a red crayon, slowly coloring inside the lines of a drawing book. He didn't look up as Mark walked in, flanked by federal agents.
"Leo," Mark whispered, his voice cracking as he fell to his knees beside the table. He ignored the officers and reached out, his bound hands hovering over his son's shoulders. "Leo, buddy, look at me. Where are they? Where did Mom and Lily go?"
Leo slowly stopped moving his crayon. He raised his head, his young face completely devoid of any childish emotion. He looked straight into Mark's bloodshot eyes.
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"They went to the safe room, Dad," Leo said quietly. "Just like you always told us to do when the world gets too loud."
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