Chapter 1 - The Hatch Under The Mat
Mason Reed tore my belt off before I had been on the mat thirty seconds.
He threw it at my feet.
Then he drove a focus pad into my chest hard enough to send me backward.
My heel caught.
I dropped onto one knee.
Around us, twelve adult students stopped warming up.
Mason stood over me.
“Get out of my dojo.”
I looked at the white belt twisted on the worn blue mat.
Then at him.
Twenty-seven.
Senior student.
Black uniform pants, gray training shirt, swollen knuckles.
I knew his face from photographs taken five years earlier.
In half of them, my sister stood beside him.
I got up.
“My sister disappeared here.”
His expression broke for less than a second.
Enough.
Then he grabbed the front of my uniform.
“Wrong building.”
He tried to pull me toward the edge of the mat.
I tore free and shoved him.
Mason stumbled backward.
“Say her name.”
His jaw tightened.
“Emma.”
A voice came from behind us.
Not Mason.
Coach Walter Hayes stood near the wall holding a paper coffee cup.
Sixty-two.
Gray hair.
The man who had told police five years ago that Ava Carter had left his dojo at 9:10 p.m. and never returned.
I looked at him.
“My name isn't the one I meant.”
Walter's eyes shifted toward Mason.
Mason came at me again.
He swung.
I moved and hit him once across the face.
His head turned.
A couple of students stepped backward.
Walter lowered his coffee.
Not because Mason had been hit.
Because of how I had moved before it.
Mason rushed me again.
I put him onto his back.
Walter stared.
“Who taught you that?”
I looked at him.
“What?”
Mason was already getting up.
He came at me once more.
I sent him toward the edge of the mat.
He landed hard and slid.
One old mat section folded under his shoulder.
Something metallic appeared beneath it.
Walter's coffee slipped from his hand.
The cup hit the floor.
I forgot Mason.
A rectangular metal hatch sat flush beneath the mat.
Old.
Paint worn around the edges.
And beside it—
a bracelet.
Thin silver chain.
Small oval charm.
My knees weakened.
I crossed the mat and picked it up.
There was a shallow dent in the charm.
I had made it when I was fifteen.
Ava had caught me wearing the bracelet without permission.
I dropped it on the bathroom tile while trying to take it off.
She'd been furious for three days.
I looked at Walter.
“This was hers.”
He didn't answer.
Mason had gone completely pale.
Behind us, one of the students whispered:
“What hatch?”
Walter said:
“Everyone off the mat.”
Nobody moved.
I held up the bracelet.
“You told police she left through the front door.”
Walter's face tightened.
“I said everyone off.”
Then—
CLICK.
Every person in the room froze.
The locking mechanism beneath the metal hatch turned.
From the inside.
Mason backed away.
The hatch lifted two inches.
Darkness beneath it.
I moved closer.
Walter caught my arm.
“Don't.”
I ripped away.
“Ava?”
The hatch rose another inch.
I saw nothing except black space.
Then someone below whispered:
“Mason?”
Female voice.
Not Ava.
I knew my sister's voice.
Even after five years, I knew what it wasn't.
Mason stared into the gap.
The fear on his face changed.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
I looked at him.
“You know who's down there.”
The hatch slammed shut.
A second metallic click followed.
Walter moved immediately.
“Front door. Everybody.”
The students finally began moving.
I didn't.
Neither did Mason.
I slipped Ava's bracelet around my fist.
“You have five seconds.”
“For what?”
“To tell me why my sister's bracelet was beside a hidden room under the last place anyone saw her.”
Mason looked toward the hatch.
Then toward Walter.
That was when I noticed the loose mat wasn't dusty underneath.
The floor around the hatch was.
The metal wasn't.
Someone had been opening it recently.
I crouched and put my fingertips against the hatch.
“Who's underneath us?”
Walter answered quietly.
“Someone who has nothing to do with Ava.”
I looked up.
“You're lying.”
His face hardened.
“No.”
Then a dull sound came from below.
A door closing somewhere deeper inside the building.
Whoever had opened the hatch had another way out.
I stood.
Mason suddenly said:
“Emma.”
I turned.
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking at the bracelet.
“You need to put that away.”
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Because if that's really Ava's…”
I waited.
Mason looked toward Walter.
Then back at me.
“…then she was down there the night she disappeared.”
May you like
Five years of police statements said otherwise.
Walter had just heard Mason destroy them in one sentence.
