CHAPTER 3 — THE SECOND VOICE IN THE HOUSE
Elias Harris did not go back to work that morning.
For twenty-three years, he had never missed a day on a construction site without calling ahead. Broken fingers, the flu, even the week after his father died—he had shown up.
But as he sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the doorway Josephine had just walked through, the thought of pouring concrete or checking blueprints felt absurd.
His daughter had whispered to someone, He thinks I'm fine.
And she had been talking about him.
He picked up his phone and called his foreman.
"I've got a family emergency."
There was no hesitation on the other end.
"Take all the time you need, Eli."
He hung up and looked around his bedroom.
Nothing seemed different.
The dresser stood where it always had. Rebecca's perfume rested on the vanity. His old baseball glove sat on the top shelf of the closet.
Everything looked exactly the same.
Yet somehow the room had become a crime scene.
Not because of blood.
Because of silence.
Elias began looking carefully.
Not searching through Josephine's belongings.
Searching through his own room.
He remembered the way she had entered so confidently, as if she had done it many times before.
She hadn't wandered.
She had come with purpose.
He checked the nightstand.
Nothing.
The closet.
Nothing.
Then he noticed the small wooden box Rebecca had given him for Father's Day years earlier.
Inside were old receipts, spare keys...
...and a folded sheet of notebook paper.
He frowned.
He didn't remember putting it there.
He unfolded it.
The handwriting belonged to Josephine.
At first it looked like homework.
Random sentences repeated again and again.
Stay calm.
Don't argue.
Smile.
Never tell Dad.
His stomach twisted.
Below those lines, another sentence had been written dozens of times until the paper had nearly torn.
If I tell him, everything gets worse.
Elias had to sit down.
Who had taught his daughter to believe that?
He knew teenagers wrote dramatic things.
But this wasn't dramatic.
It sounded rehearsed.
Conditioned.
Like instructions.
His phone buzzed.
Rebecca.
He let it ring once before answering.
"Hey," she said. "Everything okay at work?"
He closed his eyes.
She thought he was on the construction site.
"Yeah," he lied.
"Long day?"
"Looks that way."
There was a pause.
Then Rebecca asked a strange question.
"Josephine left for school on time, right?"
Elias opened his eyes.
"Why?"
"Oh... nothing."
Her answer came too quickly.
"I just forgot to ask this morning."
Before he could respond, she ended the call.
He stared at the screen.
Rebecca had never forgotten whether Josephine went to school.
Never.
By noon, Elias parked half a block from Josephine's high school.
Students crossed the sidewalks in clusters, laughing, carrying backpacks, complaining about homework.
He watched the main entrance carefully.
The lunch bell rang.
Hundreds of teenagers poured outside.
Josephine wasn't among them.
Maybe she was eating inside.
He waited another twenty minutes.
Still nothing.
His heartbeat quickened.
He walked into the front office.
A secretary looked up politely.
"Can I help you?"
"I'm Josephine Harris's father."
She smiled.
"One moment."
She typed on her keyboard.
Then her expression changed.
"I'm sorry..."
She looked confused.
"Josephine hasn't been in school since Monday."
Elias felt the floor disappear beneath him.
"What?"
The secretary frowned.
"We've marked her absent for three days."
Three days.
Three entire days.
He had kissed his daughter goodbye every morning.
Watched her walk toward the bus stop.
Believed she was sitting in algebra while he mixed cement.
His knees weakened.
"There has to be a mistake."
The secretary turned the monitor slightly.
Attendance records.
Monday.
Absent.
Tuesday.
Absent.
Wednesday.
Absent.
Today's date.
Absent.
No mistake.
Elias walked out of the school in a daze.
If Josephine wasn't in school...
Where had she been going?
And why hadn't the school called?
He checked his voicemail.
Nothing.
His email.
Nothing.
Then he remembered.
Rebecca handled the emergency contact information every year.
He called the school back immediately.
"Can you tell me which phone number you have listed for attendance notifications?"
The secretary read it aloud.
It wasn't his number.
It was Rebecca's.
"And have you contacted that number?"
"Yes, sir."
"What did my wife say?"
The secretary hesitated.
"Mrs. Harris told us Josephine had a medical issue and would be studying from home temporarily."
Elias's grip tightened around the phone.
Medical issue?
Rebecca had never mentioned one.
That evening, he arrived home before anyone else.
He didn't confront Rebecca.
Not yet.
Instead, he waited.
At four-fifteen, the front door opened.
Josephine walked in.
She looked exhausted.
Her backpack hung loosely from one shoulder.
"Dad?"
She froze.
"You... you're home early."
"Yeah."
He smiled as naturally as he could.
"How was school?"
A flicker crossed her face.
"So... much homework."
Lie.
Small.
Automatic.
Painfully practiced.
He hated how easily it came to her.
Before he could say another word, another sound reached him.
A vibration.
Not from Josephine's backpack.
From inside her jacket pocket.
She looked down.
Her face drained of color.
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she whispered,
"I have to take this."
She hurried upstairs.
Elias followed quietly.
Not close enough to be seen.
Just close enough to hear.
Her bedroom door didn't fully latch.
Through the narrow opening, he heard her answer.
"I'm home."
Silence.
Then:
"No... he asked about school."
Another silence.
"I told him what you said."
Elias felt ice spread through his veins.
What you said.
Someone was coaching every conversation.
Then came a voice.
Not clear enough to understand the words.
But loud enough for him to know one thing.
The call was on speaker for just a second.
It wasn't a teenager.
It wasn't a classmate.
It was an adult.
Calm.
Controlled.
A woman's voice.
Josephine immediately took the phone off speaker.
"I'm trying," she whispered desperately.
"I said I'm trying."
She started crying again.
"No, please..."
A pause.
"I won't tell my father."
Elias closed his eyes.
Every instinct screamed at him to burst into the room.
Instead, he stayed still.
Because now he knew something that changed everything.
His daughter wasn't hiding from him.
She was protecting him.
Or at least...
Someone had convinced her she had to.
And upstairs, behind a bedroom door only a few feet away, there was a second voice inside his house.
A voice that didn't belong there.
A voice that somehow had more influence over his daughter than her own father.
Elias quietly stepped back into the hallway.
For the first time since Mrs. Gable had stopped him at the gate, he understood something terrifying.
May you like
The screams she heard every afternoon weren't the beginning of the nightmare.
They were only the moments when Josephine could no longer pretend she was surviving it
