"They were fighting so hard. My father was screaming that he wanted a divorce, that he was taking me with him, and that he was going to expose some secret."

"Something felt wrong, so I went to their bedroom door to see what was happening. And there he was, my father, lying on the floor covered in blood, and my mother just standing next to him, watching. Calm."

"Then I watched her seal my father inside the partition wall in her bedroom."

"After that night she never let me back into her room. Whenever anyone asked about my father, she said he'd gone abroad for work."

Diana clutched her chest and wailed as her son's words sank in.

"My poor boy!"

"I knew it, I knew you'd never stay away from me this long. You died with such an injustice!"

Nicole was crying too, jabbing a finger at me as she cursed.

"Sara Henson, you wicked woman!"

"My brother was so good to you. Why would you kill him?"

Watching the two of them fall apart like that, I almost found it funny.

"Who says I killed him?"

"Anyone can write an essay. Anyone can stand here and make things up."

"Do you have proof?"

At that, my son turned to Captain Gray, eyes red, his voice shaking with righteous fury.

"Captain Gray, my father's body is right there inside that wall in my mother's room. Just break the wall open and you'll have the proof she murdered him!"

After hearing him out, Captain Gray's face turned grim.

He glanced at me, and there was scrutiny in that look, and suspicion too.

After a long moment, he waved at the officers behind him. "Inside. Break the wall."

A few of the younger officers immediately went back to the car for the sledgehammers they'd brought, ready to head in.

I moved fast, throwing my arms wide across the doorway.

"Captain Gray, you have no evidence. What gives you the right to tear down a wall in my home? That's not how this works."

He stared at me, cold, and his voice came down hard.

"Ms. Henson, your son is a witness."

"And according to our investigation, your husband, Oscar James, has no record of any activity for a full ten years. Bank accounts, cell signal, ID use. All of it, zero."

"We have strong reason to believe he's been killed. I'm asking you to cooperate with our investigation."

I stood in the doorway and didn't give an inch.

"A boy everyone expected to be the top SAT scorer, who turned in his admissions essay as an accusation letter. Do you really think a mentally stable person does something like that?"

"And whatever a disturbed child writes or says, that counts as evidence now?"

"Even if my husband has no activity record, that doesn't mean he's dead."

"Maybe he's deliberately staying out of sight. Maybe he changed his name and started over somewhere."

"Even the police have no proof he's dead. So what gives you the right to break the wall in my house?"

Captain Gray watched me, his expression heavy, and he hesitated.

Just then Teresa Lambert, who lived next door, suddenly spoke up.

"Captain Gray, I can confirm it. What her son said is true."

Everyone turned toward the voice.

Teresa spoke with complete seriousness. "I've always been a light sleeper. That night ten years ago, I heard the two of them fighting too, clear as anything. It was loud."

"But partway through, it just went silent. And starting the next day, Oscar James vanished off the face of the earth. Never showed himself again."

The neighbors beside her nodded along, one after another.

"That's right. They had a terrible fight that night, and the next day I never saw Oscar go out again. It was like he just disappeared into thin air!"

"I even asked Sara about it. She told me her husband was leaving for work abroad that very night, that she couldn't accept it, so the two of them got into a fight. But he still left that same night."

“I remember that too. At the time Sara was so convincing I didn't think anything of it. But looking back now, something really wasn't right.”

One after another, the neighbors stepped up to confirm her son's story.

The yard erupted. In the livestream, the comments flooded by faster than anyone could read:

“Everyone can testify. This Sara is definitely the killer. No way to spin it.”

“Obviously. Her own son threw away the SATs just to expose what she did. If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, why would he ever do that?”

“So horrifying. I heard her husband was really good to her, too. What kind of grudge makes you kill a man and brick him into a wall? She's insane.”

“What are they waiting for? Get inside, break the wall, arrest her!”

At that moment, a young officer hurried into the yard with a file in his hands and pressed it into Captain Gray.

Captain Gray flipped through the pages, and the further he read, the darker his face grew.

Only when he reached the last page did he look up at me, his voice heavy:

“Sara, according to our records, the night Oscar James disappeared, your water bill spiked sevenfold, far above your usual usage. In the middle of the night, what exactly were you washing away?”

“And according to the renovation logs for your complex, that same night you redid one of the walls in your home, all on your own, overnight. You didn't even hire a contractor.”

“Tell me. A woman bricking up a wall by herself in the dead of night. What were you trying to cover up?”

Captain Gray fixed his eyes on me as if he could see straight through me.

I held his gaze, my face calm, and answered evenly:

“Captain Gray, my water bill spiked that night because a pipe burst. I got up in the middle of the night to fix it, and I spent half the night rinsing the floor.”

“As for the wall, it had cracked and gotten damp. It looked terrible, so I just redid it that night. Is that a crime?”

“I built a flower bed in the yard a few days ago, too. You want to dig that up and take a look while you're at it?”

Captain Gray's brow creased:

“A whole night without sleep, just finished fixing a pipe, and then you redid a wall on top of that?”

“Sara, do you take us for fools?”

With that, he stopped looking at me and waved his hand:

“Pull her aside. Get inside. Break the wall!”

Two officers stepped up at once and hauled me back, while the rest charged inside with hammers on their shoulders.

The moment I saw them shove open the bedroom door, panic took me.

I tore free of the two officers like a madwoman, ran inside, snatched the fruit knife off the table, pressed it to my throat, and shouted:

“If any of you dares touch that wall today, I'll die right here in front of you!”

As I said it, I pressed in just enough. The tip broke the skin, and warm blood ran down my neck.

Seeing the resolve in my eyes, Captain Gray stopped short and threw up a hand to halt everyone.

The house went terrifyingly quiet.

Every eye was on me, tense.

In the livestream, the comments scrolled even more wildly:

“Oh my God, she'd hold a knife to her own throat just to stop them breaking the wall? This woman's lost her mind.”

“What's in that wall that's worth her own life?”

“The harder she fights, the more it proves there's a secret in there she can't let anyone find!”

The livestream count had already shot past five hundred thousand.

As the blood kept running down my neck, Captain Gray clearly tensed.

He lifted both hands slightly, a calming gesture, and softened his voice:

“Ms. Henson, calm down. If you really didn't do anything, breaking the wall would only prove you're innocent.”

“Blocking us like this will only make everyone suspect you more.”

I gripped the knife handle and said it one word at a time:

“I don't need to prove anything.”

“If you really think there's something in that wall, then bring your evidence.”

“Tearing down my house with no proof, how is that any different from being thugs?”

As I spoke, I pressed the blade harder again.

The sting came, and the blood ran down my neck heavier.

It wasn't that I didn't fear death.

But some things are more terrifying than dying.

Even if it cost me my life today, I would stop them.

At my words, Captain Gray fell silent.

He knew I had a point.

No warrant, no real physical evidence, nothing but a boy's accusation in a college admissions essay and a handful of neighbors' hazy memories, and they were about to forcibly tear down the wall of a private home. It was already a reckless move.

And if it cost a life on top of that, his responsibility wouldn't be as simple as losing his job.

The standoff dragged on for a good dozen seconds.

Just as Captain Gray was about to relent, my son suddenly grabbed a sledgehammer out of an officer's hands.

Then, like a man gone mad, he rushed to the partition wall in the master bedroom and raised the hammer high.

My pupils shrank, and I screamed out:

“Paul! You can't break that wall, or you'll regret it for the rest of your life!”

My son held the hammer high and looked at me, his voice hoarse and unyielding:

“Regret?”

“Mom, the thing I regret most in my whole life is not rushing in sooner that night to stop you.”

“I've waited for this day for ten whole years.”

“If I don't break this wall open and make you answer for what you did, that's what I'll regret for the rest of my life!”

The words still hanging, he threw everything he had into it and swung the hammer hard at the wall!

Bang! One blow, and the thick concrete shattered.

The wall was open.

But once everyone saw what was inside, the whole place froze……