“I’m pretty sure whoever I saw leaving earlier locked the yellow door from the outside again,” I said.
She nodded.
“Who was he? Hudson?”
No response.
“Daniel?” I pushed, knowing it was a risk. But I had to know. I needed something solid.
She laughed in a harsh burst, like she’d just heard a ridiculous joke. “Are you asking me if you’re married to a monster? Isn’t that something you should know?”
“He’s not a monster!” I said. Just saying it aloud settled something in me. He wasn’t. I knew it. Deep down, I knew it. Daniel couldn’t hurt a fly.
“Then why ask me,” she said, “if you already know?”
So it had to be Hudson who’d been down here earlier. But then—did Tara know? What the hell was going on here?
“Am I stuck here until he returns?” I asked.
“No. If you want to get out of here, there’s a hidden door in one of the storage rooms. Behind the old wooden shelf. When you turn right at the fork. Second room on the left.”
The words settled over me like a slow chill.
It all made sense now. That was how she was getting out. That was how Mochi had seen her—talked about her like she wasn’t just some ghost in the walls.
“You know how to get out of here?” I asked. She could escape at any time if she wanted to. But she didn’t.
A smug grin tugged at her mouth. “Of course I do. The monster and I are the only ones who know about that secret door. He showed it to me. Nobody but him knew it was there.” She let that sit a beat before adding, “It was built by the very first Winthrop. Another monster. One from the past.”
My stomach turned.
“He built it so he could rape maids down here in the basement,” she continued, her voice casual in the worst way. “The thick walls muffled the screams. You can still see the old bed frame where he did it, right next to the shelf. Some of them were as young as ten.”
A metallic taste filled my mouth. I swallowed hard. “That’s disgusting.”
She shook her head, slow and dismissive. “It is. Monsters. All of them.”
I almost asked again about the person I’d seen leaving earlier, just to be sure. But then something else hit me—something that might be as bad as everything she’d just told me.
“Wait. If you know how to get out of here...”
My thoughts jumped to Rascal and the wound across his stomach. It looked like something had sliced him open. And Mochi, repeating over and over that the stupid dog should die. This woman knew exactly how to escape, and she probably also knew where the keys to the yellow door were hidden.
I stepped closer, not just to her but to the door too.
“Did you hurt Rascal?” The question snapped out of me harshly.
“Rascal?” she asked, turning to me with an icy calm demeanor. “Is that the stupid dog?”
My chest clenched. “Oh my God. It was you.”
Shock coursed through me, even though, really, why was I surprised? A woman living in a basement for God knows how long wasn’t exactly working with the clearest mind.
She shrugged and kept stacking plates in a cabinet. The dishes made a soft clink as they met each other.
“The stupid dogs make you sick,” she said. “It’s better if they die.”
I felt my throat tighten. My eyes flicked toward the hallway doors, toward the exit.
