Chapter 3 - The House with the Covered WindowsPolice reached Reena’s suburban house shortly after midnight.
The front door was locked.
Her SUV was gone.
No one responded to repeated knocks.
Detective Cole obtained emergency authorization to enter after doctors confirmed the children’s condition and Drew described being confined in the basement.
Peter waited at the hospital while officers searched.
Cole called him at 1:43 a.m.
“We found the room.”
Peter closed his eyes.
The basement had been divided by a newly installed interior door secured with a dead bolt from the outside. The small window near the ceiling was covered with painted plywood. Inside were two thin blankets, an empty water container, a child’s plastic cup, and a bucket.
No beds.
No toys.
No working light.
Scratches marked the lower half of the door.
Some were high enough to have been made by Drew.
Others were much lower.
Lily’s height.
Peter walked into the hospital bathroom and became sick.
When he returned, Detective Cole was still on the phone.
“There’s more,” she said.
The upstairs portion of the house appeared immaculate.
Fresh flowers on the kitchen island.
Clean bedrooms.
Family photographs arranged throughout the hall.
Drew and Lily’s rooms looked lived in from the doorway, but the drawers were nearly empty. Their school clothes had been folded and displayed while most of their daily belongings were packed inside boxes.
The house had been staged.
Reena wanted visitors to believe the children lived normally upstairs.
Officers also found letters from the school concerning repeated absences.
Reena told administrators the children were grieving, sick, or visiting relatives.
Peter had been listed as the relative.
“I never had them,” he said.
“We know.”
Reena had used his name to explain their disappearance.
Cole asked whether Aaron left money.
Peter answered that his brother carried a life-insurance policy and owned part of the construction company where he worked. He had assumed everything transferred to Reena for the children’s care.
“How much?” Cole asked.
“I don’t know.”
The answer made Peter feel ashamed.
After Aaron’s funeral, he had offered help, not oversight.
He brought groceries twice.
Asked whether bills were covered.
Reena always smiled and said Aaron had prepared well.
Peter never requested documents.
He told himself respecting boundaries was kindness.
Detective Cole found those documents inside a locked desk.
Aaron’s policy paid nearly two million dollars.
But the trust was unusual.
Reena received monthly support only while both children lived with her and remained enrolled in school. If either child was removed for neglect, criminal conduct, or abandonment, control transferred to Peter.
Aaron had named his brother as successor guardian.
Peter gripped the phone.
“He never told me.”
“Someone knew,” Cole replied. “The copy in Reena’s desk has the guardianship section circled.”
Peter looked through the hospital glass at Drew sleeping beside Lily.
Reena had not merely hidden neglect.
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She had been protecting access to money dependent on keeping the children officially inside her home.
👉 Reena needed the children to remain legally under her roof—but police found evidence she had been preparing for them to disappear permanently.
