Chapter 8 - Room 614
The abandoned Hawthorne Hotel stood forty miles outside the city.
Daniel wanted police present.
Emily refused to wait.
Eventually they compromised.
Two private investigators accompanied them while officers were notified.
Room 614 was on the sixth floor.
The corridor smelled of dust and damp plaster.
Most doors had been removed during renovations that never happened.
Room 614 was still locked.
Emily used her mother’s brass key.
It opened.
Daniel stared at her.
“That key wasn’t for the desk.”
Emily looked at the old lock.
“It was for both.”
Inside, the room had been stripped almost bare.
There was a bed frame.
A broken lamp.
A dresser bolted to the wall.
And faded wallpaper.
Emily walked toward the window.
Her mother had been there.
She could feel it without understanding why.
Daniel examined the dresser.
One drawer refused to open.
He pulled harder.
Nothing.
Emily noticed scratches near the bottom.
They moved the dresser away from the wall.
A narrow metal compartment had been cut into the plaster behind it.
Inside was a cassette recorder.
Three tapes.
And a sealed envelope.
Emily picked up the first tape.
The label read:
ANNA - MAY 14.
Daniel found an old player in the investigators’ equipment kit.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice appeared.
Emily stopped breathing.
She had not heard her mother’s voice in twelve years.
“Robert, if you’re listening to this, Charles knows.”
Emily covered her mouth.
Anna continued.
“He knows about Emily.”
“He knows about the trust.”
“And Vanessa heard us arguing.”
Daniel looked sharply at Emily.
Vanessa had been a teenager then.
Anna’s voice continued.
“She asked her father why he was afraid of a girl he had never met.”
There was a pause.
Then Anna said something stranger.
“Charles told her Emily could take everything.”
The tape ended.
Daniel inserted the second cassette.
Robert’s voice filled the room.
“Anna, I have enough evidence.”
“If anything happens to me, do not go back to the mansion.”
“Do not trust anyone who tells you Margaret sent them.”
Margaret.
Emily felt her chest tighten.
Daniel immediately shook his head.
“That doesn’t mean my mother was involved.”
“No.”
Emily stared at the recorder.
“It means someone could use her name.”
The third cassette began differently.
Footsteps.
A door opening.
Then Charles Vale’s voice.
“You’ve made this unnecessarily difficult, Anna.”
Emily gripped the edge of the dresser.
Anna answered.
“I copied everything.”
Charles laughed softly.
“Then tell me where.”
Anna said nothing.
Charles continued.
“You have a daughter now.”
The recording abruptly ended.
Daniel looked toward the sealed envelope.
Emily opened it.
There was only one object inside.
A photograph.
It showed Anna holding a little girl.
Emily.
Standing beside them was another person.
Margaret Mercer.
May you like
On the back, Anna had written a date.
It was six months after Margaret claimed she had last seen her.
