Across the midnight airwaves, my husband announced that I had disappeared and introduced his mistress as the new cohost; the station’s abandoned emergency line rang from the locked basement—and my mother, missing for eighteen years, said, “He’s lying again.”

“Emily!” Michael’s voice boomed down the narrow stairwell, muffled through the thick wood and stone. “I didn't want it to end like this! You should have just stayed at the diner!”

I ran to the foot of the stairs and looked up into the darkness. “Michael! Open this door! It’s over! The whole county heard her voice on the air!”

A bitter, hysterical laugh echoed down the steps.

“They heard a glitch!” Michael shouted back. “I hit the emergency tape delay five seconds after she spoke! I told the audience it was a promo for a Halloween radioplay archive! Jessica is out in the parking lot right now, packing her things, but she doesn't know anything that will stick in court!”

“You monster!” I screamed, slamming my fists against the lower security gate. “She’s been down here for eighteen years! My whole life—you took my whole life!”

“I built your life!” Michael yelled, his voice cracking with unhinged passion. “Who gave you the midnight show?! Who made you a local celebrity?! I protected you from the truth, Emily! You were too soft to handle what your mother did! But now... now you’ve forced my hand.”

Inside the bunker, Margaret walked calmly over to a heavy metal workbench. She picked up an old, brass-handled crowbar and handed it to me.

“He thinks this bunker only has one way out,” Margaret said softly, a dark, triumphant smile touching her lips. “He forgot that I spent eighteen years mapping every pipe, every conduit, and every wire under this county.”

She led me to the back iron door—the entrance to the old municipal drainage tunnel system.

“Where does this go?” I asked, taking the crowbar.

“Directly under the main parking lot,” Margaret said. “Right beneath the station’s main electrical junction box. If we cut the station’s land power and backup generator relays from below, the automated emergency satellite uplink will trigger. It bypasses his studio board and broadcasts raw audio from the emergency weather microphone on the roof straight to the national affiliate network.”

“Then let's cut it,” I said.

While Michael was busy piling heavy equipment crates against the top of the basement door to seal us in, Margaret and I leveraged the crowbar into the seam of the back tunnel door. With a shower of rusted flaking iron, the door groaned open, revealing a damp, brick-lined conduit echoing with the rushing sound of rain runoff.

We crawled through the narrow passage, illuminated only by the small beam of a hand-crank flashlight Margaret had kept on her belt.

Up above, through the iron storm grates set into the asphalt, I could hear the muffled sounds of sirens in the distance.

Jessica hadn't just packed her things and left.

As we reached the main junction alcove directly beneath the parking lot, the glaring white headlights of four police cruisers cut through the rain-streaked darkness above, sweeping across the station’s exterior walls.