Chapter 2 - The Knocking Below
The first police officer through the front door was a broad-shouldered woman named Sergeant Naomi Price. Her partner, Officer Luis Alvarez, entered behind her with one hand resting near his holster.
Rachel stood in the kitchen with Lily pressed against her side, Biscuit’s cut red collar still clenched in her fist.
“The sound came from the basement,” Rachel said. “Someone knocked from downstairs.”
Sergeant Price looked toward the basement door.
Carol remained planted in front of it.
“No one is down there,” she said.
The officer’s eyes narrowed. “Step away from the door, ma’am.”
“This is my son’s house.”
“And we’re responding to a report of possible animal cruelty and a person potentially trapped inside. Step away.”
Carol looked at Dale as though she expected him to defend her.
Dale did not move.
His face had turned gray.
“Mom,” he said quietly. “Move.”
Carol’s mouth tightened. She stepped aside.
Sergeant Price opened the basement door. A narrow staircase disappeared into darkness.
“Police,” she called. “If anyone is down there, make a sound.”
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then came three weak knocks.
Lily gripped Rachel’s scrub top.
“That’s what we heard.”
Officer Alvarez drew his flashlight. “Stay here.”
The two officers descended.
Carol crossed her arms, but Rachel noticed her hands shaking beneath her elbows. Grant was no longer near the kitchen door. He stood beside Monica now, whispering urgently.
Rachel caught only three words.
“Should have moved it.”
Sergeant Price’s voice rose from below.
“We’ve got someone!”
Rachel’s heart stopped.
A moment later came the scrape of metal and a man’s groan.
Officer Alvarez appeared first, supporting a thin, bearded man whose wrists were tied with gray electrical cord. His clothes were filthy. Blood had dried beneath his nose, and one eye was swollen shut.
Rachel recognized him.
“Mr. Holloway?”
Thomas Holloway lived three houses down. He was a retired mechanic who repaired lawn mowers in his garage and gave Lily peppermints whenever she walked Biscuit past his porch.
He could barely stand.
“Rachel,” he whispered. “Don’t let them touch the food.”
Carol moved backward.
Sergeant Price followed them upstairs carrying a plastic gasoline container in one gloved hand and a bloodstained wooden mallet in the other.
The kitchen erupted.
Monica screamed.
George began praying.
Grant rushed toward the rear exit.
Officer Alvarez released Mr. Holloway into Rachel’s care and tackled Grant before he reached the door. They crashed into the kitchen island, sending wineglasses to the floor.
“Get off me!” Grant shouted. “I didn’t do anything!”
Alvarez twisted his arms behind his back.
“Then stop running.”
Rachel guided Mr. Holloway into a chair.
“What happened?”
His breathing was shallow.
“I saw them take Biscuit.”
Lily made a broken sound.
Rachel held up one hand. “Is he alive?”
Mr. Holloway looked at the child. His bruised face softened.
“Yes.”
Lily’s knees buckled.
Rachel caught her.
“He’s alive?” Lily cried. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know now.”
Carol spoke sharply. “He is confused.”
Sergeant Price turned on her. “You need to stop talking.”
Mr. Holloway pointed toward Carol.
“She put something in the dog’s food. He got sleepy. Grant carried him to a van.”
Grant struggled against the officer holding him.
“That’s a lie!”
“I followed them,” Holloway continued. “They stopped behind the old feed store on Route 8. I saw them put Biscuit in a cage.”
“Why?” Rachel asked.
Mr. Holloway swallowed painfully.
“Because the dog dug something up.”
Carol’s expression changed.
It was almost invisible, but Rachel saw it.
“What did he dig up?” she asked.
Before Holloway could answer, Carol stepped forward.
“You are listening to a senile old man who trespassed on private property.”
Sergeant Price moved between them.
“Back up.”
Holloway touched his ribs and winced.
“They saw me. Grant hit me. They brought me back here because they didn’t know what I had seen. They locked me in the basement storage room.”
Rachel looked at Dale.
“You knew?”
“No.” Dale shook his head. “I swear.”
“But you knew something.”
He stared at the floor.
Rachel’s voice hardened. “Tell me.”
Dale’s shoulders collapsed.
“Mom called me before I came home. She said Biscuit had bitten someone and animal control had taken him.”
“Who did he bite?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“And you believed her?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“You saw his collar.”
Dale looked toward the trash can.
“Yes.”
Lily began to cry again.
Rachel stared at her husband.
“You saw the cut collar, and you sat down to dinner?”
“I was trying to keep everyone calm.”
“No. You were trying to keep your mother calm.”
Paramedics arrived and began examining Mr. Holloway. One of them found signs of a possible fractured rib and prepared him for transport.
Sergeant Price ordered everyone separated.
The dining room became a temporary crime scene. Officers photographed the stew, the broken serving bowl, the collar, the mop bucket, and the scratches on Dale’s hand.
An animal control officer arrived wearing a dark green jacket. She collected samples from each bowl and sealed them in evidence bags.
Lily refused to leave Rachel’s side.
“Are they going to test the meat?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“What if it’s Biscuit?”
Rachel wanted to promise it was not.
She could not.
Instead, she knelt and held Lily’s face between her hands.
“Mr. Holloway said Biscuit was alive when he saw him. We are going to believe that until we know otherwise.”
Sergeant Price approached them.
“We found blood in the basement, but it appears human. Likely Mr. Holloway’s. We also found several empty veterinary sedative packages.”
Rachel looked toward Carol.
“Veterinary sedatives?”
Carol said nothing.
Price continued. “We need to know who has access to them.”
George raised a trembling hand.
“My brother was a veterinarian. After he died, Carol cleared out his clinic.”
“That was eight years ago,” Carol snapped.
“Some medicines can remain potent,” Rachel said.
Sergeant Price nodded. “Especially if stored properly.”
Grant had been placed in handcuffs at the kitchen table. His arrogance was beginning to crack.
“I didn’t drug the dog,” he said. “That was Mom.”
Carol turned on him.
“Be quiet.”
Grant laughed bitterly. “You told me this would be simple.”
“What would be simple?” Sergeant Price asked.
Grant looked away.
Carol’s stare seemed powerful enough to silence him.
Rachel remembered what Mr. Holloway had said.
The dog dug something up.
She looked through the kitchen window toward the backyard.
Biscuit had been digging near the garden all week. Dale had complained about mud on the patio. Carol had come over twice without invitation and spent hours “helping” clean the flower beds.
“What did Biscuit find?” Rachel asked again.
No one answered.
Then one of the officers entered from outside carrying a clear evidence bag.
Inside it was a mud-covered strip of blue fabric.
“We found this beside the garden,” he said. “There’s more buried under the hydrangeas.”
Carol closed her eyes.
Rachel stared at the fabric.
It looked like part of a shirt.
There was something dark along one torn edge.
Sergeant Price’s radio crackled.
A detective was on the way.
The backyard would be searched.
No one was allowed to leave.
Dale stepped closer to Rachel.
“I had no idea about Holloway.”
She looked at him.
“Did you know your mother buried something in our yard?”
His silence answered her.
Rachel felt the betrayal before he spoke.
“Years ago,” Dale said, “before we bought this house, Mom asked me never to dig behind the hydrangeas.”
Rachel’s skin turned cold.
“This house belonged to your parents.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She said an old septic line ran through there.”
Rachel looked toward Carol.
“You buried something on this property, and Biscuit found it.”
Carol’s face became strangely calm.
“You have always enjoyed creating stories, Rachel.”
The detective arrived twenty minutes later.
Her name was Evelyn Brooks, and she carried herself with the quiet focus of someone who had learned not to trust the loudest person in a room.
She listened to Sergeant Price’s summary, then examined the collar.
“Where is the dog now?” she asked.
“Possibly at the old feed store on Route 8,” Rachel said.
Brooks immediately dispatched officers and animal control.
Lily sat on the kitchen floor with Rachel’s coat wrapped around her shoulders.
The waiting became unbearable.
Every minute felt like another chance for Biscuit to disappear.
Finally, Sergeant Price received a call.
She listened, nodded, and looked at Lily.
“They found the van.”
Lily jumped up.
“Is Biscuit there?”
“The cage is there. It’s empty.”
Hope vanished from the child’s face.
“But there’s blood and dog hair inside,” Price continued. “They also found a second collar.”
Rachel’s breath caught.
“What kind?”
“Red leather. New. Same size as Biscuit’s.”
Detective Brooks looked toward Carol.
“A replacement collar?”
Carol said nothing.
The detective stepped closer.
“Were you planning to make it appear that another dog was Biscuit?”
Grant lowered his head.
George began to cry.
Rachel understood before anyone explained.
They had sedated Biscuit.
Removed his identifying collar.
Placed him somewhere else.
Then planned to produce a similar-looking dog wearing a new red collar—or perhaps claim Biscuit had returned injured and confused.
But why?
Why would anyone go to such lengths?
An officer appeared at the back door.
“Detective, you need to see the garden.”
Rachel followed despite being told to stay inside.
The hydrangeas had been uprooted. Beneath them, officers had uncovered a shallow layer of black plastic.
A crime scene technician carefully peeled it back.
The blue fabric was attached to a weathered jacket.
Inside the jacket was a bundle of documents sealed in clear plastic.
No body.
No bones.
Documents.
Detective Brooks crouched beside them.
The top page bore the faded logo of a local bank.
Rachel recognized a name written across the account statement.
Eleanor Price.
Carol’s older sister.
The woman who had supposedly moved to Florida 18 years earlier and cut off contact with the family.
“She didn’t move,” George whispered from behind them.
Everyone turned.
He stood on the patio under police supervision, tears streaming down his face.
“She found out what Carol had done.”
Carol’s voice cracked like a whip.
“George.”
But this time, he did not obey.
“She found the accounts,” he said. “She found the forged signatures.”
Detective Brooks rose.
“What accounts?”
George pointed toward the documents.
“The money Carol stole from her own parents. And from Eleanor.”
Rachel looked at the garden, the cut collar, and the frightened faces around her.
Biscuit had not simply dug up trash.
He had uncovered evidence of a crime hidden for nearly two decades.
And Carol had been willing to terrorize an 11-year-old child, kidnap a neighbor, and make an entire family participate in a lie to keep it buried.
Lily tugged Rachel’s sleeve.
“Mom, where would they take Biscuit after the feed store?”
Rachel looked at Grant.
He knew.
She walked back into the kitchen and stopped in front of him.
“Tell me where he is.”
Grant shook his head.
“Mom said he would be safe.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel picked up the cut collar and placed it on the table in front of him.
“My daughter trusted you. Biscuit trusted you. Mr. Holloway may have permanent injuries because of you.”
Grant stared at the bloodstained leather.
Rachel lowered her voice.
“Carol cannot protect you now.”
His eyes shifted toward his mother.
Carol’s expression remained cold.
But Grant finally saw what Rachel had already understood.
Carol would sacrifice anyone.
Even her own son.
Grant’s face crumpled.
“There’s an abandoned hunting cabin near Deer Creek,” he whispered. “She told me to leave him chained inside until morning.”
Lily gasped.
Outside, freezing rain had begun striking the windows.
Detective Brooks grabbed her radio.
Rachel reached for her coat.
“You’re not going,” Dale said.
She turned on him.
“My daughter’s dog is chained in an abandoned cabin during a storm.”
“The police will handle it.”
Rachel took Lily’s hand.
“No,” she said. “This family has handled enough.”
As officers rushed toward their vehicles, Carol watched Rachel from across the kitchen.
For the first time, her confidence was gone.
But beneath the fear was something darker.
A warning.
“You think this ends at the cabin?” Carol asked.
Rachel paused.
May you like
Carol smiled faintly.
“Finding the dog will be the easiest part of tonight.”
