The next morning, Detective O’Halloran and Dr. Leary arrived in Clorain to see whether there had been any changes in the girl’s behavior. And the very first thing that upset Orla was that the girl hadn’t touched the food. The officers who had remained on duty reported that during the night they had heard rustling sounds coming from the cellar. One of them even thought the steps had creaked. But the girl had not come up to the surface.

  Orla went downstairs and immediately noticed the plate of buns she had bought at the bakery on the outskirts of town. Incredibly soft, tempting sweet rolls dusted with powdered sugar hadn’t even been bitten into. That worried the doctor.

  “You don’t trust us, do you?” she asked the emptiness.

  The girl was once again sitting beneath the staircase, considering it the safest place. Orla approached the mattress and looked down at it.

  “I’m standing next to your bed. I can’t believe you live in a place like this. Who did this to you? Who locked you in here?”

  Suddenly, Orla noticed a thin strip of light lying across the mattress, timidly slipping through a narrow crack in the wall. She crouched down. Today she had prudently chosen jeans and a light blouse that didn’t restrict movement, throwing a leather jacket over it. In the silence, the leather gave a faint, plaintive creak — a clear sign of how new it was. Orla nearly pressed her face into the makeshift pillow sewn from scraps of fabric. A horrible smell rose from it, making the doctor grimace with disgust, but she continued her examination.

  “Dr. Leary? Are you down there?” Shane’s voice echoed from above as he descended the steps.

  “Yes, Detective. Come here.”

  “A hole in the wall?” he said as soon as he sat down beside Orla on the filthy mattress. “At least some kind of ventilation. Though that opening hardly saves her from all the stench that’s built up here over God knows how long.”

  His gaze, along with the beam of his flashlight, shifted toward the staircase.

  “She’s there. But she doesn’t want to come out.”

  O’Halloran didn’t understand where this sudden азарт — this strange thrill — came from, but he wanted to see the girl, if only catch a glimpse of her.

  “Do you think she’s still alive?”

  Dr. Leary was already brushing sand off her jeans.

  “Your people heard her moving.”

  “Yes, but right now there’s not a sound.”

  He knocked several times on the iron railing. An unexpected response came from the other side — a dull knock.

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  “Knock again, Shane,” Orla whispered. “And count. One, two, three…”

  A dull knocking answered back: one, two…

  Orla and Shane looked at each other, barely making out each other’s features in the darkness. Silence — and then… three.

  They repeated it several times. And every time, the girl answered with the same number of knocks Shane made.

  “From what just happened, I can confidently say she’s ready for communication,” Orla said happily as she and Shane walked toward their cars. “She can count. That means restoring her psychological state will be much easier. She’s aware of what she’s doing.”

  “I see. That’s all very nice, of course. But I still can’t wrap my head around why she doesn’t want to come out into freedom. How long does someone have to sit there to give up their own will?”

  Shane shook his head irritably and opened the car door to get in when Orla threw out the next phrase:

  “Almost an entire lifetime.”

  She didn’t explain further. She got into her car and drove away.

  “Psychologists sometimes behave very strangely,” Shane muttered under his breath and decided to leave as well. He still had plenty of work waiting for him back at the station.

  At the precinct, Evan approached him — as always cheerful and tireless. Sometimes Shane envied his partner’s boundless energy and inexhaustible stamina.

  “Take a good look at this jar,” Evan said, thrusting the dirty container taken from the cellar under the detective’s nose. “What do you think is inside?”

  Fay, who was sitting at her desk, snickered without taking her eyes off the screen. Shane shot her a cold glance. Fooling around again. And why did he always fall for it?

  “I don’t know,” O’Halloran said, examining the jar. “Mushrooms, maybe?”

  “Where would she find mushrooms in a cellar?” Evan smirked.

  “Well, there are mushrooms that grow in damp places.”

  “Then I doubt they would’ve found her alive,” Fay tossed in.

  Fay O’Keefe worked on Shane O’Halloran’s team and mostly handled paperwork. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, yet her entire appearance screamed exhaustion with life. Fay was burdened with too many hardships: two small children she rarely saw — and when she did, she nearly lost her mind because their grandmother had spoiled them completely; a difficult marriage, a divorce, then an attempt to build a relationship with another police officer, which also led nowhere good. She outranked him, which caused constant arguments and conflicts. Despite all this, Shane trusted her and valued her as a reliable assistant.

  “So, in your opinion, what is it?” the senior detective — or, as many were used to calling him, the boss — asked.

  “I have two theories,” Evan replied. “Either it’s some kind of greens, or spoiled pickles.”

  He set the jar on the desk and slapped the lid with his palm.

  “As I understand it, the cellar was meant for food storage.”

  “Yes, I saw something like boxes for root vegetables on the right,” Shane said. “But I don’t think that even after three years it would be hard to identify food in a jar. This looks like something vile.”

  “A rat?” Evan joked.

  “Ugh!” Fay exclaimed, covering her mouth as if she could already smell the contents of the jar sitting on her desk. “Evan, you were going to send that for analysis — go on!”

  “And hurry it up!” Shane added, imitating an angry tone.

  When Evan Gallagher left the office, Shane grew serious, buttoned his jacket — though there was no real need — and looked at Fay.

  “What about the former residents?”

  “I contacted the realtor who sold the house to Clive Daniel. We have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. As soon as I learn anything, I’ll let you know immediately.”

  Shane nodded and, without another word, went to his office, where he spent the rest of the workday. And all that time, he kept thinking about the girl in the cellar. How could he help her? What was holding her in that dark, cold place?

  That evening, returning to his empty bachelor apartment, he called Orla to ask if there had been any changes. But she, like his officers on duty, said the situation remained unchanged. As long as the girl stayed under the stairs, there was nothing they could do.