Chapter 3 - THE MIDNIGHT SECRET
The guest room of the Voss house was cramped, dusty, and located directly above the furnace, making the air stiflingly hot.
I didn't sleep.
I lay on top of the thin mattress, fully dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a black sweater, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. Every instinct in my body was on high alert. The way Caroline had flinched, the missing keys, the public humiliation at the dinner table—it all pointed to a systematic, psychological execution of my sister’s self-worth.
At 2:17 a.m., I quietly stood up, unlocked the guest room door, and stepped out into the dark hallway.
The house was deathly quiet, save for the rhythmic, heavy snoring coming from Marlene’s bedroom at the end of the hall.
I tiptoed down the stairs, using the sides of the wooden steps to prevent them from squeaking. My goal was the kitchen—I wanted to grab a glass of water and inspect the house further while everyone was asleep.
As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I noticed the door to the master bedroom was cracked open.
A faint sliver of moonlight illuminated the room inside. I paused, taking a cautious step closer.
Through the crack, I could see Derek lying sprawled across the king-sized bed, fast asleep, taking up the entire mattress. The left side of the bed was completely undisturbed—the pillows untouched, the sheets tucked in tightly.
Caroline wasn't in the bed.
A knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. Where was she?
Suddenly, a faint, metallic thrumming sound echoed from the back of the house. It was a low, vibrating hum, followed by the sloshing of water.
The washing machine.
At two in the morning?
I crept past the kitchen toward the back door, which led out to an enclosed, unheated porch area that served as a laundry utility room. The wooden door leading to the porch was slightly ajar.
I pushed it open silently.
The air that hit my face was freezing. The enclosed porch had no insulation, and the cold Oregon night air seeped through the cracks in the wooden frame.
In the dim light cast by the washing machine’s digital display, I saw a shape curled up on the cold linoleum floor.
It was Caroline.
She was lying on her side on a thin, worn-out camping mat—no thicker than an inch. She was wrapped in a faded blanket, her knees pulled tightly to her chest for warmth, sleeping directly next to the vibrating washing machine.
My heart shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Caroline,” I breathed out, my voice breaking.
She bolted upright in an instant, her eyes wide with sheer terror. She threw her hands up defensively in front of her face, scrambling backward until her spine hit the side of the dryer.
“Don't—! Please!” she choked out, her voice a frantic whisper.
“Caroline, it’s me! It’s Adrienne!” I dropped to my knees beside her on the cold floor, reaching out to grasp her hands.
She was shivering violently, her skin ice-cold to the touch.
“Adrienne?” she gasped, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dim light. “What... what are you doing out here? You need to go back inside before Derek wakes up!”
“What am I doing?” I gripped her small, freezing hands tightly. “What are you doing sleeping on the floor of a utility room in freezing weather? Why aren't you in your bed?”
Caroline pulled her eyes away, looking down at the linoleum. “Derek... Derek sleeps fitfully. He says I toss and turn too much and disrupt his sleep. He needs his rest for work.”
“So he makes you sleep on an unheated porch on a camping mat?!” I hissed, pure rage boiling up in my chest.
“It was my choice!” she lied desperately, her voice shaking. “I prefer it out here. It’s quiet.”
“Stop lying to me!” I cried softly, tears finally burning my eyes. “Caroline, please, look at me!”
I reached forward to pull her blanket higher around her shoulders, but as I adjusted the fabric, her loose sweatshirt sleeve slid backward up her forearm.
Under the harsh fluorescent light of the utility room, my breath hitched in my throat.
Her lower arm was covered in small, circular scars.
Dozens of them.
Some were old, faded white marks; others were red, fresh, and raw.
They were burn marks. Perfectly round, uniform burns.
Cigarette burns.
I grabbed her arm, lifting it closer to my eyes, completely horrified. “Oh my God... Caroline... who did this to you? Who did this?!”
Caroline panicked, frantically yanking her arm back and slapping her sleeve down to cover her skin. “Nothing! It’s nothing! I’m clumsy, I burned myself on the stove, on the iron—”
“You didn't burn yourself thirty times in perfect circles, Caroline!” I yelled in a hushed, furious whisper. “Is it Derek?! Is he doing this to you?!”
“No! No, Derek loves me!” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.
As she pulled her hands back, something small and heavy rolled out from beneath her thin camping pillow and bounced across the linoleum floor, coming to a rest against my boot.
I reached down and picked it up.
It was a small, amber plastic medicine bottle.
I turned it over in my hand. There was no pharmacy label. No doctor’s name. No instructions. No identification at all. Just a plain amber bottle filled with small, unmarked white pills.
Caroline lunged for it with a sudden, desperate strength, snapping her fingers at me. “Give that back to me! Give it back, Adrienne, please!”
I held it out of her reach, staring at the mysterious pills. “What is this? What are you taking?”
“They’re just vitamins! Herbal supplements Marlene buys for my anxiety!”
“Unmarked pills in an unlabelled bottle?” I looked from the bottle to my sister’s gaunt, exhausted face, connecting the dots in real-time. The extreme lethargy, the hollow cheeks, the complete submission, the sudden memory losses Marlene kept pointing out...
They were drugging her.
“Adrienne, please, if Derek finds out you’re out here, if he sees you with those—” Caroline was weeping uncontrollably now, clutching her knees, her entire body rocking back and forth. “You have to leave. You have to leave Portland. Please, just go back to Chicago!”
I looked down at the tiny amber bottle in my hand, then at my broken, terrified little sister.
May you like
The sadness inside me burned away, replaced by an absolute, icy resolve.
“I’m not going anywhere, Caroline,” I said softly, slipping the pill bottle deep into my sweater pocket. “I’m staying right here until I put every single one of them behind bars.”
