Chapter 5: The Room
While the girls were being examined I called a trusted neighbor and asked him to meet a locksmith at the house.
I did not return there myself until the children were settled in a temporary place with a relative who already understood the situation. Only then did I walk through my own kitchen again, the silver key still in my hand.
The storage room was at the end of the back hallway. The lock was new enough that the screws still showed bright metal. Inside: bare concrete, a single shelf, no window, no light switch that worked from the inside. The air was stale. On the floor near the door were small scuff marks consistent with a child’s shoes.
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I photographed everything, left the room untouched, and called the non-emergency line to request an officer for a report. Vanessa had already left the house by then. A bag was missing from the hallway closet. I did not try to find her.
Lily’s statement at the clinic had been clear and consistent. Hena’s had been shorter, broken by residual panic, but the same on the central point: the door locked from the outside, the dark, the waiting for someone to open it again. Vanessa’s claim that the girls “attacked first” had no supporting injury on her and no witness except the two children who contradicted it.
