Chapter 4: Basement

He's in this house. I go down at 11:52 with a kitchen knife in my sleeve and my heart in my throat. The basement door is unlocked. The stairs are cold concrete. There's a light on at the bottom, and a chair, and on that chair sits a man with a bag over his head and his wrists zip-tied to the frame. He's the right size. He's the right shoulders. I whisper, "Dad?" and I pull the bag off. It isn't my father. It's a man I've never seen, beaten so badly his eye is sealed shut, and when he sees...