PART 2 — THE SECRET UNDER THE YELLOW HOUSE
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
The officer's words kept repeating inside my head.
“Your son accidentally uncovered something someone has been trying to hide for more than twenty years.”
I looked down at the piggy bank in my hands.
Then I looked across the street.
Mrs. Adele's little yellow house stood exactly as it had the night before.
Except now there was a police officer standing beside the front door.
Another officer was speaking quietly into a radio near the driveway.
“Where is Mrs. Adele?” I asked again.
The officer in front of me sighed.
“She isn't here.”
My heart dropped.
“What do you mean, she isn't here?”
“She left sometime during the night.”
“Left where?”
“We don't know.”
I stared at him.
“That doesn't make sense. She's eighty-one. She barely walks without her cane.”
“We know.”
His expression changed.
“That's why we're concerned.”
I looked back at the dozens of piggy banks scattered across my yard.
“Who brought all of these?”
“We're still trying to figure that out.”
He pointed toward the piggy bank he had given me.
“This one was found on your front step at 4:17 this morning.”
“And the others?”
“People started leaving them sometime before dawn.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“Neighbors.”
I frowned.
“Why would our neighbors leave piggy banks here?”
The officer looked at me.
“Because someone posted a message last night.”
“What message?”
He pulled out his phone and showed me a photograph.
It was a picture of Oliver standing beside Mrs. Adele's front door.
Someone had taken it from across the street.
Underneath the photograph were the words:
A CHILD GAVE AWAY HIS SAVINGS. NOW IT'S OUR TURN.
My eyes filled with tears.
People from the neighborhood had seen what Oliver had done.
They had responded by giving what they could.
But then I noticed something.
At the bottom of the photograph was another sentence.
Ask Adele about the basement.
I looked up.
“The basement?”
The officer nodded.
“That's what we're trying to understand.”
I suddenly remembered something.
Mrs. Adele's house didn't have a basement.
At least, not one I'd ever seen.
I had lived across from her for almost eight years.
There was a small crawl space beneath the kitchen, but no basement entrance.
“That's impossible,” I said.
The officer didn't answer.
Instead, he asked me a question.
“Did your son say anything unusual when he came home last night?”
I thought about it.
He had been unusually quiet.
And then I remembered what Mrs. Adele had whispered into his ear.
“What did she say to him?” the officer asked.
“I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“She whispered something. Oliver said it was a secret.”
The officer exchanged a look with the other policeman.
“What?”
He shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“Please.”
He looked uncomfortable.
“We need to talk to Oliver.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because whatever Mrs. Adele told him may be important.”
I turned toward the stairs.
Oliver was still asleep.
Or so I thought.
When I walked into his room, he was sitting upright in bed.
His blanket was wrapped around his shoulders.
His eyes were wide open.
“Mommy?”
I sat beside him.
“Sweetheart, did Mrs. Adele tell you something yesterday?”
Oliver looked at me.
For a moment, he said nothing.
Then he asked quietly:
“Are the police here because of her?”
“Yes.”
His little face became pale.
“Did something happen?”
“We don't know.”
He stared at his hands.
Then he whispered:
“Mommy, I think I made a mistake.”
My heart broke.
“You didn't do anything wrong.”
“I wasn't supposed to tell.”
“Tell me what?”
He looked toward the window.
Across the street, two officers were standing outside the yellow house.
Oliver lowered his voice.
“Mrs. Adele told me where the lights came from.”
I frowned.
“What lights?”
“The lights in the basement.”
I felt a chill move through me.
“There is no basement.”
Oliver shook his head.
“There is.”
He climbed out of bed and walked to his toy box.
From underneath a pile of stuffed animals, he pulled out a small brass key.
I stared at it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mrs. Adele gave it to me.”
My hands began to tremble.
“What did she tell you to do with it?”
Oliver looked at me with complete seriousness.
“She said, ‘If they ever come looking for me, give this to your mommy.’”
I couldn't breathe.
“Who are ‘they’?”
Oliver shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Then he added something that made my blood run cold.
“She said they had been looking for the key for twenty years.”
I took the key from his hand.
It was old.
Very old.
There was a tiny number engraved into the metal.
17.
At that exact moment, someone knocked on the bedroom window.
I screamed.
Oliver jumped.
But there was nobody outside.
Only a small envelope taped to the glass.
I pulled it down with shaking hands.
There was no name on it.
Only one sentence.
THE POLICE ARE NOT THE PEOPLE YOU SHOULD FEAR.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed Mrs. Adele twenty-three years earlier.
She looked much younger.
Standing beside her was a man I had never seen before.
But there was something about him that made my stomach twist.
I recognized the face.
Not because I knew him.
Because I had seen his photograph before.
On my own father's desk.
The man in the picture was my father's business partner.
A man who had supposedly died twenty-two years ago.
I turned the photograph over.
Written on the back were four words:
HE NEVER REALLY LEFT.
Then my phone rang.
It was the officer downstairs.
His voice was urgent.
“Ma'am, you need to come outside immediately.”
“Why?”
“We found something beneath Mrs. Adele's kitchen.”
“What?”
He paused.
Then whispered:
“A locked door.”
I looked at Oliver.
He was staring at the brass key in my hand.
And suddenly I understood why Mrs. Adele had given it to him.
She hadn't wanted my son to save her.
She had wanted him to lead us to the truth.
But whatever was behind that door had been hidden for more than twenty years.
And someone had just realized we had found the key.
