I turned on the flashlight on my phone and descended the wooden stairs.
The basement was finished — once a nice rec room, now something else entirely. Plastic sheets covered parts of the floor. There was a faint smell of antiseptic mixed with something sweeter, almost floral. In the far corner, behind old furniture and boxes, I saw it.
A large, upright freezer chest. The kind people use for bulk meat storage.
My breath caught. No. It couldn’t be.
I walked closer, my footsteps echoing. The freezer was plugged in, humming softly. On top of it sat a framed photo of Claire — the same beautiful woman from the pictures upstairs. She was smiling, holding baby Grace.
With shaking hands, I lifted the heavy lid.
Inside, nestled among bags of ice and frozen food, was a woman’s body.
Claire.
Preserved. Pale. Her eyes closed like she was sleeping. She wore the same red dress from the photo Daniel kept on his nightstand — the one she wore the night of the accident. Her skin looked almost waxy under the frost.
I screamed.
The lid slipped from my fingers and slammed shut. I stumbled backward, nearly falling over a box. That’s when I noticed the other things.
A small mattress in the corner with children’s blankets. Toys scattered around. A child-sized table set for tea parties. And on the wall, drawings the girls had made — pictures of a happy family of four, with “Mommy Claire” standing in the basement.
Footsteps pounded down the stairs.
“Sophia?” Daniel’s voice. He must have come home early.
