Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE WALL“Emily died eleven years ago,” Detective Mason said.
My eyes stayed on the photograph.
She was younger than I had expected.
Not glamorous in the way Margaret always dressed for charity dinners, not polished like Ethan, not carefully composed.
Emily looked ordinary.
Warm.
She had one hand resting against the balcony railing, and around her wrist was a thin silver bracelet with a small heart hanging from it.
I stared at that bracelet.
I had seen it before.
Not on Emily.
On Margaret.
“You recognize it,” Mason said quietly.
I swallowed.
“Margaret wears one just like that.”
Mason nodded.
“It is the same bracelet.”
The room seemed to shrink around me.
I looked back at the photograph.
“Where did you get this?”
“From a storage box Emily left behind.”
He opened the folder again.
“She didn't die in the house.”
I waited.
“She died in a hospital after a fall from that balcony.”
My breath caught.
“Just like me?”
“Almost exactly.”
Mason placed another photograph beside the first.
It showed the Morgan house eleven years earlier.
Same balcony.
Same glass doors.
Same stone railing.
But there was something different.
A small wooden panel beside the fireplace.
I frowned.
“What is that?”
“It's part of the original wall.”
He tapped the photograph.
“That panel disappeared during renovations three months after Emily's death.”
I stared at him.
“You said something was hidden inside the walls.”
“We believe Emily knew someone was trying to kill her.”
My fingers tightened around the blanket.
“Why?”
“Because she left instructions.”
Mason removed a folded piece of paper.
The handwriting was shaky.
Emily had written only one sentence.
If anything happens to me, don't trust the person who says I was careless.
I closed my eyes.
Margaret had used that exact word about my fall.
“Careless,” I whispered.
Mason watched me carefully.
“Claire, there is something else.”
He reached into the folder and removed a small brass key.
It was old.
Simple.
Almost worthless.
Except for the number engraved on it.
17.
“Emily gave this to someone two weeks before she died.”
“Who?”
“A woman named Ruth Calder.”
I stared at him.
“The housekeeper?”
Mason nodded.
“Ruth worked for the family for twenty-six years. She disappeared from the area shortly after Emily died.”
My heart started pounding.
“Is she alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Living in Pennsylvania.”
I looked at the photograph again.
“Then why hasn't anyone talked to her?”
“Because until yesterday, no one knew what she had.”
He placed a second photograph on the bed.
It showed Emily standing beside Ruth.
Emily was smiling.
Ruth was holding a child's drawing.
A yellow house.
Three stick figures.
And a red circle around one particular window.
“What is that?” I asked.
“That's what we're trying to understand.”
Before I could answer, the hospital door opened.
Ethan walked in.
Two officers stood behind him.
His face looked pale.
For the first time since I had known him, he looked genuinely afraid.
His eyes went to me.
Then the photograph.
Then Mason.
“What did you tell her?”
Mason stood.
“The truth.”
Ethan's jaw tightened.
“Claire, I can explain.”
I almost laughed.
“You watched me fall.”
He looked down.
“I was scared.”
“You watched.”
“I thought you were already dead.”
“And then you let everyone call it an accident.”
His eyes filled with something that might have been shame.
But Mason interrupted.
“You can explain that later.”
Ethan looked at the folder.
His face changed.
“Where did you get that?”
Mason didn't answer.
Ethan stepped backward.
“You shouldn't have that.”
That was the moment I understood.
The photograph wasn't frightening him because it showed Emily.
It frightened him because it showed something he had believed was gone.
Mason picked up the brass key.
“Number seventeen mean anything to you?”
Ethan stared at it.
Then he whispered,
“No.”
But his hands were shaking.
Mason noticed.
So did I.
An hour later, Ethan was taken away for questioning.
Margaret remained in custody.
And Mason returned to my bedside with one final piece of information.
“We searched the house.”
My heart sank.
“And?”
“We found the original wooden panel.”
“Where?”
“In the library.”
“What was behind it?”
Mason hesitated.
“A cavity in the wall.”
“And?”
He looked directly at me.
“Someone had already opened it.”
I felt cold.
“Was anything left?”
“One thing.”
He placed a small object on the blanket.
A silver heart.
The bracelet's missing charm.
On the back, four words had been scratched into the metal.
He knows where she is.
I looked up.
“Who?”
Mason's phone rang.
He listened for several seconds.
May you like
Then his expression hardened.
“Ruth Calder just disappeared from her home.”
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