Chapter 5 - Returning to the House of Latches
Two weeks after the court hearing, the police escorted us back to forty-six twelve Elmwood Lane to collect Lizzy’s clothes, books, and personal belongings.
The house looked different in the gray afternoon light—abandoned, hollow, and strangely small. The police tape across the front door had been removed by court order so we could retrieve her things, but the lingering aura of oppression remained trapped inside the walls.
The kitchen window where I had broken in with the landscaping rock had been temporarily patched with plywood and heavy plastic sheeting.
"Stay downstairs with Adam, sweetie," I told Lizzy softly as we stood in the downstairs hallway. She was wearing her favorite red jacket and her pink sneakers, holding onto my hand with a grip that had grown stronger over the last fortnight.
"I want to come," she whispered, her eyes wide as she looked up the carpeted stairs leading to the second-floor landing.
"I know," I said, crouching down to her eye level. "But I need to get your things from that room so we can pack them up and never look at them again. Uncle Ian and your cousin Noah are waiting in the car. Go help Noah pick out a song on the radio, okay?"
Lizzy nodded, a small, trusting smile touching her lips, and ran back down the hall toward the front door where Adam was waiting.
I took a deep breath, climbed the stairs, and walked down the hallway to the second-floor storage closet.
The door was wide open now. The police and forensic investigators had already removed the metal sliding latch as evidence, leaving ugly screw holes gouged into the white-painted wood of the doorframe. Inside, the winter coats still hung neatly on their wooden hangers, but the floor was bare where Lizzy had been curled up that rainy night.
As I reached into the back of the closet to grab a small plastic bin containing her old baby books and a few handmade drawings, my hand brushed against something metallic wedged deep in the corner behind a stack of old board games.
I pulled it out.
It was a small, blue plastic tape recorder—an old-fashioned dictation machine with worn rubber buttons.
Frowning, I pressed the play button.
For a second, there was only the hiss of dead magnetic tape. Then, a thin, terrified little voice crackled through the tiny speaker.
“Please let me out. I’m sorry I ate the cracker. I won't do it again. Please, Grandma... it’s so dark in here.”
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A cold wave of nausea washed over me. I pressed stop so hard my thumb ached. My parents hadn't just confined her; they had recorded her terror, treating her suffering like an archive of discipline to be reviewed or perhaps used as leverage later.
Without hesitation, I dropped the recorder into my canvas tote bag alongside her books, marched down the stairs, and walked straight out the front door of Elmwood Lane for the very last time.
