I left the phone dangling from its cord and crossed the porch without putting on shoes.
The boards were cold beneath my feet.
I didn't look toward the street. Looking would slow me down, and I had no intention of giving the man climbing from that truck even three additional seconds.
Bentley's door was unlocked.
I stepped inside and closed it behind me.
“Bentley.”
He was standing in the hallway.
Maddie had awakened and was crying on the couch.
“What?”
“Take your sister and come with me.”
His expression hardened instantly.
“Why?”
“Now.”
He saw something in my face.
“Is it Mom?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
A car door slammed outside.
Bentley's eyes moved toward the front window.
I crossed the room and pulled the curtain fully closed.
“Shoes. Coat. Maddie.”
He didn't move.
“Miss Arlene.”
The porch creaked.
Someone had stepped onto it.
I heard one footfall.
Then another.
Maddie stopped crying.
She stared toward the door.
The knock came softly.
Three taps.
Not pounding.
Not forcing entry.
Almost polite.
Bentley's face went white.
I put one finger to my lips.
The knock came again.
A man's voice followed.
“Amber?”
Bentley grabbed my sleeve.
His fingers dug into my arm.
He knew that voice.
Whatever Amber believed he had forgotten, his body had remembered.
I bent close to him.
“Back door.”
He shook his head.
“The gate squeaks.”
“That's fine.”
“He'll hear.”
“Let him.”
A shadow moved beneath the front door.
“Amber,” the man called again. “I just want to talk.”
I took Maddie from the couch. She was warm and heavy with sleep, Bunny trapped between our bodies.
Bentley still hadn't moved.
I caught his shoulder.
“Look at me.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“You're coming with me.”
Outside, the doorknob turned.
Locked.
The man tried it once.
Then stopped.
Bentley whispered, “That's him.”
I didn't ask who.
We moved through the kitchen.
I unlocked the back door as quietly as I could, but the swollen wood stuck against the frame.
The front porch creaked again.
I pulled harder.
The door opened with a pop.
Cold air rushed inside.
Maddie whimpered.
“Shh, baby.”
Bentley went first.
The little gate beside the trash bins made exactly the squeal he had predicted.
From the front of the house came a sudden hard knock.
“Bentley?”
He stopped dead.
The man had used his name.
I shoved him gently between the shoulder blades.
“Move.”
We crossed the narrow patch of winter grass behind the duplex and entered my side through the back kitchen door.
I locked it.
Then the deadbolt.
Then the chain.
My landline receiver was still hanging beside the table.
Amber's voice came faintly from it.
“Arlene? Arlene?”
I picked it up.
“We're inside my apartment.”
“Was it him?”
“Yes.”
Bentley stared at the phone.
Amber must have heard something in my voice.
“Call Ortiz.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
I reached for my mobile.
Before I could unlock it, the front doorbell rang.
Maddie buried her face in my shoulder.
Bentley stood perfectly still.
The bell rang again.
Then a man's voice floated through my door.
“Ma'am?”
I didn't answer.
“I know you're home.”
Bentley's eyes widened.
The man continued.
“My son lives next door. I'm trying to find his mother.”
My son.
Bentley flinched as though struck.
I whispered into the landline, “Amber, call 911 from there.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
I ended the call.
The front bell rang again.
“Ma'am, I don't want trouble.”
I carried Maddie into the hallway.
“Bentley, upstairs.”
He shook his head.
“Go.”
“What about you?”
“I'll be right behind you.”
“What if he comes in?”
“He won't.”
I didn't know that.
Bentley knew I didn't know it.
Still, he took Maddie's hand when I set her down.
They climbed three steps before the man knocked again.
Then he said something that stopped Bentley.
“Benji?”
Bentley turned around.
His face changed in a way I had not seen before.
Not fear exactly.
Recognition.
The private kind.
I pointed upstairs.
He whispered, “Nobody calls me that.”
“Keep moving.”
“My dad did.”
My stomach tightened.
Outside, Travis said, “Benji, I know you're in there.”
Maddie began crying again.
Bentley climbed the stairs.
I waited until I heard the bedroom door close.
Then I stepped into the living room and looked through the peephole.
Travis Ward stood beneath the porch light.
He was perhaps forty, broad through the shoulders, with close-cut hair graying at the temples. He wore a dark work jacket and jeans. Nothing about him looked theatrical or monstrous.
That made him worse.
Danger rarely bothers to dress for the part.
He was looking directly at the peephole.
“Mrs. Keene?”
My breath caught.
He knew my name.
“I've checked the property records,” he said.
I remained silent.
“I know you own this place.”
He smiled faintly.
“I'm not here to hurt anybody.”
The sentence was nearly enough to make me laugh.
People with harmless intentions rarely announce them through locked doors.
He lifted both hands slightly.
“Amber has been keeping my son from me for years.”
I said nothing.
“She lied to courts. She lied to police. She moved him across state lines.”
Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.
Travis heard it.
His eyes moved toward the ceiling.
“Benji?”
I pressed my palm flat against the door.
“You need to leave.”
My voice sounded steadier than I felt.
His eyes returned to the peephole.
“So you are home.”
“I said leave.”
“I only want to talk to my son.”
“You can do that through the appropriate legal process.”
His expression shifted.
Barely.
The smile remained, but something underneath it hardened.
“Amber told you things.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know what she wants you to know.”
“Leave my property.”
“You own both sides?”
“Yes.”
“Then you know she hasn't paid rent.”
The fact that he knew that frightened me more than the rest.
“How do you know?”
His smile widened slightly.
“People talk.”
Doug.
The thought came instantly, though I didn't yet know whether it was fair.
Travis leaned closer to the door.
“She's unstable, Mrs. Keene.”
I nearly rolled my eyes despite the danger.
“That's what men like you always say.”
The smile vanished.
There.
For one clean second, I saw the man Amber had described.
Then it returned.
“You've made up your mind.”
“My mind is that you're standing on my porch after being told to leave.”
“I've got parental rights.”
“Then bring a lawyer.”
“Amber won't let me.”
“That's not my problem.”
“It becomes your problem when you interfere.”
I heard a distant siren.
Travis heard it too.
His face became still.
The siren grew louder.
He stepped away from the door.
“I didn't threaten you.”
“No.”
“You remember that.”
“I'll remember everything.”
His gaze lifted toward the second-floor window.
“Tell Bentley his dad came for him.”
Then he walked calmly down my porch steps.
Not ran.
Not hurried.
Calm men frighten witnesses less.
The black Ford started before the patrol car turned onto Kilgore Avenue.
By the time flashing lights washed across my curtains, Travis was gone.
Two officers arrived first.
I explained only what mattered: a man with a violent history had come to the property looking for Amber and Bentley; he had refused to leave immediately; the children were inside.
Bentley came downstairs only after one officer promised Travis was gone.
He stood behind the banister listening while I described the truck.
The younger officer crouched slightly.
“You recognize the man, buddy?”
Bentley stared at his shoes.
I waited.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Bentley looked at me.
Then said, “My dad.”
The words sounded unnatural in his mouth.
The officer asked whether Travis had ever hurt him.
Bentley frowned.
“I don't remember.”
That matched Amber's claim.
But then he added, “I remember the basement.”
I looked at him.
“What basement?”
Bentley's eyes remained on the floor.
“My old house.”
The officer glanced at me.
I shook my head to show that I knew nothing about it.
“What happened there?” he asked.
Bentley rubbed his wrist.
“I don't know.”
“You just remember being there?”
He nodded.
“With your father?”
Another nod.
“What do you remember?”
Bentley's breathing quickened.
“A washing machine.”
“What else?”
“Red paint on the stairs.”
He shut his eyes.
“And Mom yelling.”
I stepped toward him.
“That’s enough.”
The officer stopped questioning.
Bentley looked at me, confused by his own memory.
“Mom said I forgot.”
“She probably thought you had.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I think she wanted me to.”
That sentence stayed with me.
After the officers left, I locked the house again and settled the children in my upstairs room. Maddie fell asleep quickly.
Bentley did not.
At midnight, I found him sitting at the top of the stairs.
“Can't sleep?”
He shook his head.
I sat beside him.
For a while neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “He used to give me orange candy.”
“Your father?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you remember liking it?”
“I think so.”
He rubbed both palms over his knees.
“I remember hiding under something.”
“What?”
“A table maybe.”
His voice became thinner.
“Mom was on the floor.”
I didn't move.
“Was she hurt?”
“I don't know.”
He squeezed his eyes shut.
“There was blood on her shirt.”
The house seemed to narrow around us.
“I thought that happened in a dream.”
I placed my hand beside his on the stair.
“You don't have to remember everything tonight.”
“What if Mom lied?”
“She may have kept things from you because she believed forgetting would protect you.”
“That's still lying.”
“Yes.”
I wouldn't insult him by pretending otherwise.
His eyes filled.
“Is my dad bad?”
It was the hardest question he had asked me.
“He has done dangerous things.”
“To Mom?”
“Yes.”
“To me?”
“I don't know.”
Bentley looked toward the dark living room.
Then he whispered, “I think I do.”
My phone rang downstairs.
Both of us jumped.
I answered it before the second ring.
“Mrs. Keene?”
A woman's voice.
“Yes?”
“This is Detective Lena Ortiz.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Amber Collins asked me to contact you.”
“Yes.”
“I've also just received a report that Travis Ward approached your property.”
“He did.”
Ortiz exhaled slowly.
“I need you to listen carefully. Do not take Bentley back into Amber's apartment tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because Travis didn't come to Indiana simply to see his son.”
I looked up the staircase.
Bentley was watching me.
“What is he here for?”
Ortiz paused.
“When Amber disappeared three years ago, she took something from him.”
“What?”
“A storage key.”
I frowned.
“What does that have to do with Bentley?”
“We believed Amber had the key.”
“She doesn't?”
“No.”
“Then who does?”
Ortiz's answer came quietly.
“We think she hid it with Bentley before the attack.”
I stared at the boy sitting halfway down the stairs.
He was wearing the same old backpack he had carried every morning.
And suddenly I wondered what else he had been carrying without knowing it.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Detective Ortiz Searched Bentley’s Backpack for a Key, but the Object We Found Pointed Back to a Basement He Barely Remembered
For Nine Mornings Bentley Knocked at 7:10, and Every Polite Request Made the Silence Next Door Feel Stranger
Part 6 of 15
