Chapter 4 - The Third Floor
Claire’s heart stopped.
Vanessa looked down at the letters written across the page.
“What is this?”
“A game.”
“A game?”
“He was bored.”
Vanessa looked at Noah.
Then back at Claire.
“You know he doesn’t speak.”
“I know.”
“So why are you teaching him to spell?”
Claire forced herself to shrug.
“Because not speaking doesn’t mean not thinking.”
Vanessa’s expression became very still.
For once, the perfect society smile did not return.
“Get out.”
Claire gathered the sheets.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“I mean out of his room.”
Claire passed her.
Then Vanessa whispered.
“You are becoming a problem.”
Claire walked away without answering.
That night, she waited until the mansion went dark.
The live-in staff slept in rooms beside the kitchen.
Vanessa’s bedroom was in the east wing.
Noah’s room was directly below the sealed third floor.
At 1:17 A.M., Claire used the service staircase.
She had copied the third-floor key two months earlier when cleaning the housekeeper’s cabinet.
At the time, she had done it because losing keys in a mansion could cost her a day’s pay.
Now it could save Noah’s life.
The lock clicked.
Dust covered everything upstairs.
Furniture sat under white sheets.
Portraits leaned against walls.
Laura Whitman’s presence remained everywhere.
A navy coat hanging behind a door.
A pair of riding boots.
A half-finished landscape painting.
Claire searched carefully.
Box.
Noah had said box.
She opened wardrobes.
Drawers.
Storage trunks.
Nothing.
Then she noticed scratches on the wooden floor beneath Laura’s old writing desk.
Claire pushed the desk aside.
One floorboard was loose.
Under it sat a small green metal box.
Claire pulled it free.
Locked.
She tried the mansion keys.
None worked.
Then she remembered the lighthouse book.
Maybe Noah had not chosen it only because of the note.
Maybe the book contained something else.
Claire hurried downstairs.
Vanessa had removed the book from Noah’s room.
But Claire had seen where she carried it.
The library.
She slipped inside.
The blue book sat on a side table.
Claire opened the cover.
Taped inside the spine was a tiny brass key.
Her hands shook.
She returned upstairs.
The key fit.
Inside the box were bank records.
A flash drive.
A photograph of Vanessa standing beside Laura.
And a sealed envelope.
Written across the front in Laura Whitman’s handwriting were four words.
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME.
Claire barely had time to read them.
May you like
A light switched on behind her.
Vanessa stood in the doorway.
