Ten years of silence ended by one letter in the attic. 😰🔍

Turns out, my sister is… not missing. She never left the house.

The letter was dated the morning she disappeared. The handwriting was jagged, hurried, stained with what looked like dried tear drops.

“Sam, if you are reading this, I didn’t run away. I would never leave you or Mom and Dad. It’s Mark. I found his old phone in his travel bag last night. I thought he was hiding messages from another woman, but it was worse. God, it was so much worse. There were photos. Other wives, Sam. Three of them. They were all listed as ‘missing persons’ online, but I saw photos of them… after.

He caught me looking. He didn’t get angry. He just smiled that soft, charming smile and told me I wasn’t allowed to leave. He locked the bedroom door. He’s downstairs now, mixing concrete for the ‘renovations’ in the basement he insisted on starting immediately. He says I’m going to be part of the foundation of this family forever.

I’m going to try to hide this in the college box before he comes back up. I hope you find it. I hope you find me. Don’t let him get away with it.”

I dropped the letter, my breath hitching in my throat. My entire body went cold. The silence of the attic was suddenly deafening.

For ten years, we had comforted Mark. We had held him while he cried. We invited him to Thanksgiving. We treated him like a son. We let him keep the house—her house.

My eyes darted to the date on the letter. It was the day before Mark poured the new concrete floor in the basement. He had told us it was therapeutic, a way to keep his hands busy to deal with the grief.

A floorboard creaked behind me.

I spun around.

Mark was standing at the top of the attic stairs. He wasn’t the grieving widower anymore. He was wearing that same soft, charming smile my sister described. He looked at the open box, then at the letter on the floor, and finally at me.

“You know,” he said, his voice terrifyingly calm, “I always wondered when someone would finally open that box. It’s a shame, Sam. I was really hoping to avoid digging up the basement again.”

He took a step forward, and I realized the attic door was the only way out.