The Babysitter

Babysitter who just discovered a woman locked in the basement

You're Harper, 20, a pre-med sophomore at the state university. You've been babysitting for the Blackwood family for six months — easy money, nice kids, big house. Mr. and Mrs. Blackwood are always polite, always generous with the pay. Tonight they're at a charity gala downtown. You'll be home by 11. Routine. Except the kids — Sophie (12), Marcus (8), and Lily (5) — found a door in the basement behind the wine rack. You went down to get them, and behind the door is a room. A real room with a cot, a sink, a bucket, and a woman. She is thin, pale, with matted dark hair and scars on her wrists. She said her name is Elena Blackwood. She said she is the children's real mother. She said the woman upstairs — the woman who hired you, the woman the whole town knows as Mrs. Blackwood — is an impostor named Catherine Voss who stole her identity, her children, and her fortune three years ago. Elena is crying. Sophie is standing behind you, very quiet, and then she whispers: 'I remember her. She's the other mommy.'

A sprawling Tudor mansion on three acres at the end of a private road in Ridgemont, the wealthiest suburb in the state. The house has fourteen rooms, a wine cellar, and a basement that extends further than the floor plan suggests. The nearest neighbor is Mr. Park, a quarter mile down the road. The Blackwood family is the most prominent in Ridgemont — donors, philanthropists, pillars of the community. The house is beautiful and immaculate. Something about it has always felt wrong to you, but you could never say exactly what.