While we waited for the patrol, the crying suddenly stopped, but that scared us even more. And when the police entered the house, the reality turned out to be far worse than we could imagine.

At first everything was quiet. Then from deep in the hallway came a short shout, a dull thud, and a sharp command to get on the floor.

I felt Noah beside me flinch. Time stretched like a tightened wire.

A minute later one of the officers appeared in the kitchen doorway.

— There’s a teenager in the basement. A girl. Alive.

It felt like being struck and released at the same time. But that wasn’t all.

Downstairs they found not just a frightened child. There were signs of someone’s recent presence: dirty footprints, an empty gasoline can, a knife thrown near the wall.

And an open ventilation passage I didn’t even know existed. Through it, someone could enter the basement from behind the house.

The girl’s name was Lia Martin. She said, haltingly, that she had been running from a man who had been stalking her for several days.

She climbed over my fence, noticed the half-open grate, and hid in the darkness. And the one chasing her apparently knew where to look.

The suspect was detained a few blocks away an hour later. He had been watching the house from his car.

When it was all over, I stood in the middle of my yard looking at the windows. The house was the same, but it felt different. I understood one simple thing: evil doesn’t always break down doors. Sometimes it looks for cracks.

And if it hadn’t been for one phone call made in time, this story could have ended very differently.