Chapter 4 - THE FOURTH FIGUREFor several seconds, nobody spoke.
I looked at the drawing again.
Four figures.
A mother.
A child.
Two adults.
And the red-circled window.
“Who is the child?” I asked.
The attorney shook his head.
“Ethan wouldn't tell me.”
“Then why give me the drawing?”
“He said you would understand why it mattered.”
I almost snapped at him.
“I don't understand anything.”
Mason stepped between us.
“Where is Ethan?”
“Still being questioned.”
“Does he know about Ruth?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“He believes Margaret found her.”
That sentence changed everything.
I looked at Mason.
“You said Ruth disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“What if she wasn't taken?”
He frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“What if she ran?”
“Why would she?”
“Because she knew something.”
Mason stared at the drawing.
Then he looked at me.
“You think Ruth is protecting the child.”
“I think Emily trusted her.”
That night, Mason showed me security footage from the Morgan property.
It had been recorded two days before my fall.
Margaret was walking through the library.
She stopped beside the fireplace.
Then she touched the wall.
Not randomly.
Precisely.
Three times.
The footage ended.
I whispered,
“She knew where it was.”
Mason nodded.
“But she didn't know how to open it.”
“Why?”
“Because the original mechanism required something else.”
He placed Richard's watch on the table.
I understood.
“The watch.”
“Yes.”
Margaret had been searching the walls for the money.
But Richard had hidden the key.
And Emily had hidden the second piece.
The bracelet.
I suddenly remembered something.
“Margaret gave me a gift.”
Mason looked at me.
“After our wedding.”
“What?”
“A jewelry box.”
I had barely thought about it in months.
“Where is it?”
“At home.”
Mason's expression changed.
“Claire, what was inside?”
“A silver necklace.”
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Describe it.”
I closed my eyes.
“A small heart pendant.”
Mason stood immediately.
“That's not possible.”
“Why?”
“Emily wore a necklace like that.”
My stomach dropped.
The necklace had disappeared after my wedding.
I had assumed I misplaced it.
But suddenly I remembered Margaret standing behind me, fastening it around my neck.
She had smiled.
“You're family now.”
I had thought it was kindness.
It wasn't.
It was a test.
Mason sent an officer to search the house.
Hours later, the necklace was found.
Not in my bedroom.
Not in the jewelry box.
It was inside the lining of Margaret's old coat.
And the pendant opened.
Inside was a tiny brass disk.
Number seventeen.
The same number as the key.
I stared at it.
“The key opens something.”
Mason nodded.
“But not in the house.”
“Then where?”
He turned the brass disk over.
There was an address engraved on it.
17 Willow Lane.
Mason searched the records.
The address belonged to an abandoned property.
But there was one complication.
Someone had been paying its property taxes every year.
Anonymous payments.
For eleven years.
“Who?”
“We're tracing it.”
Then Ethan appeared in the doorway.
Two officers stood behind him.
His eyes were red.
“Claire.”
I looked away.
He came closer.
“I need to tell you something before my mother does.”
I said nothing.
“Emily wasn't just my wife.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“She was my sister's best friend.”
I frowned.
“Then why did you marry her?”
“I didn't.”
Silence.
“What?”
Ethan swallowed.
“The marriage record was real.”
“But?”
“Emily discovered Margaret had created a false identity for someone.”
He looked at Mason.
Then back at me.
“And the woman in that photograph wasn't Emily Morgan.”
My entire body went cold.
“What are you saying?”
Ethan's voice broke.
“Emily Morgan was never her real name.”
Mason stepped forward.
“Then who was she?”
Ethan looked toward the window.
“Her real name was Sarah Calder.”
I stared.
“Calder?”
He nodded.
“Ruth's daughter.”
The room went silent.
May you like
Then Ethan whispered,
“And the child in the drawing was Sarah's daughter.”
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