Chapter 3 - Morning Panic in Grand Rapids
Back in Grand Rapids, the Sunday morning sun cut through the frost on the windows of the Callahan household, illuminating an expensive, quiet, and deeply tense home.
Patrick Callahan woke up at 7:30 AM with a dry mouth and a headache from the previous night's Thanksgiving wine. He rolled out of bed, pulled on a fleece bathrobe, and walked down the carpeted hallway toward the kitchen, expecting the smell of fresh coffee and sizzling bacon.
Instead, the house was dead silent.
“Joanne?” he called out, his voice echoing off the hardwood walls. “Where’s the coffee?”
Joanne emerged from the master bedroom, her hair tied back in a silk wrap, wearing a matching silk lounge set. She frowned, checking her gold-plated wristwatch.
“Your mother must still be asleep,” Joanne muttered, irritation flashing across her face. “She didn't even start the laundry. Honestly, you give her a bed and a roof, and the moment your back is turned, she gets lazy.”
“Check the basement,” Patrick grumbled, heading toward the kitchen to brew his own pot. “Maybe she locked herself in early to avoid chores.”
Joanne walked briskly down the hallway, pushed open the heavy basement door, and flicked the light switch.
“Rosalyn!” she snapped down the concrete stairs. “Get up right now! Patrick wants his shirts pressed before church!”
Only silence answered her.
Frowning, Joanne marched down the steps, her slippers clicking sharply against the damp concrete floor. The narrow cot was empty. The grey woolen blanket was neatly folded at the foot of the mattress. The broken window covered with cardboard was undisturbed, but the heavy metal padlock on the exterior service door—which Patrick usually kept latched from the outside—was unhooked and hanging loosely from its bracket.
Joanne froze. A cold knot twisted in her stomach.
“Patrick!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with sudden panic. “Patrick, get down here right now!”
Heavy footsteps thudded down the stairs a second later as Patrick appeared in the doorway, a mug of coffee in his hand. “What is it? Why are you screaming?”
“She’s gone!” Joanne pointed frantically at the empty cot. “The old woman is gone!”
Patrick’s mug slipped from his fingers, shattering against the concrete floor, dark coffee splashing across his slippers. “Gone? What do you mean she’s gone? How could she be gone? The doors were locked!”
“Look at the service latch!” Joanne pointed with a trembling finger. “Someone unlocked it from the inside! Or... or someone let her out!”
Patrick bolted past his wife, pushing open the heavy service door that led out to the driveway. The morning air rushed in, cold and empty. There were no tire tracks, no footprints in the light frost save for a pair of smooth-soled boots—boots that definitely didn't belong to an elderly woman with swollen knees.
Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck Patrick like a physical blow.
He spun around, grabbing Joanne by the shoulders. “The master study. Did you check the master study?”
Without waiting for an answer, Patrick sprinted back up the stairs, shoving past the dining room and into his private home office. He threw open the bottom drawer of his mahogany desk, ripping aside tax files and blank checks.
The floor-safe built into the baseboard was standing wide open.
Inside, the compartment was completely empty. The rusty metal box—the original deeds, the corporate buyout papers from Sterling Real Estate, and the notarized power-of-attorney drafts that still needed Rosalyn’s forged signature—was gone.
Joanne staggered into the office, her face draining of every drop of color. Her hands flew to her mouth.
“Audrey,” Joanne whispered, the name dropping like a lead weight in the room. “It was Audrey. Last night when she left... she took her.”
Patrick’s face twisted into an ugly mask of rage and terror. He grabbed his cell phone from the desk, his fingers shaking so violently he dropped it twice before dialing his daughter’s number.
The phone rang and rang.
May you like
“The subscriber you have dialed is currently unavailable or out of service,” an automated voice chimed smoothly.
Patrick slammed his fist against the mahogany desk so hard the wood splintered. “She didn't just take her mother, Joanne,” he breathed, his voice trembling with absolute panic. “She took the deeds. If she opens that box... if she sees what those properties are worth... we are completely ruined.”
