Panic Room: Some Doors Don’t Keep Danger Out. They Lock It In.

Some doors don’t keep danger out. They lock it in. Twelve years ago, DI Elliot Crane’s life ended in a house on Oakmere Lane.A masked intruder. A panic room meant to keep his family safe.A phone call cut off mid-scream.And then—nothing. No bodies. No answers. Just a ruined shell of a house and a detective in a coma who woke to find his wife and children gone.Now, the site has been reborn as Wilton House, a glossy “flagship” apartment block with a new name and new tenants. When Elliot is called to a routine noise complaint there, the layout feels wrong in a way his bones recognise. Behind one of the pristine walls is something the developers never meant anyone to find: a sealed steel chamber humming with old air and older secrets.As forensics work to open the door, the story fractures across three timelines: Claire Crane, trapped in the panic room with her children the night everything went wrong; Elliot in the long aftermath, rebuilding his body while his obsession sharpens; and Mason Hart, the officer who answered that first call—and who knows far more about Oakmere Lane than he ever admitted.When the lock finally turns, the truth waiting in the dark will force Elliot to choose what justice means when the system itself has blood on its hands.