Chapter 20 - The Room Was Open

One year later, Hale Mansion no longer belonged to Victor.

He donated most of the estate to a nonprofit supporting children harmed by unethical medical research.

The west wing became temporary family housing.

The ballroom became a therapy center.

The private theater became a classroom.

The hidden basement server room was sealed permanently after federal investigators removed the last evidence drive.

Only one room remained unchanged.

Amelia’s.

Victor could never decide what to do with it.

Until Ethan asked.

“Can we open Mommy’s room?”

Victor looked at him.

“For what?”

“So people don’t have to be scared of it.”

The answer stunned him.

So they opened it.

Not as a shrine.

Not as a secret.

As a reading room.

Amelia’s books stayed.

Her photographs stayed.

The hidden steel compartment remained visible behind protective glass.

Beside it hung a plaque.

TRUTH SHOULD NEVER NEED A LOCKED ROOM.

Lily read the words on opening day.

Victor stood beside her.

“You wrote that.”

“No.”

“Ethan did.”

She laughed.

“Of course he did.”

Victor looked at her.

“You could leave, you know.”

Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Are you firing me?”

“No.”

“For the record, I’m not really your maid anymore.”

Victor smiled.

That was true.

Lily had used settlement money from the Aster case to study social work.

She now directed the family-support program inside the former mansion.

The woman Serena once called invisible now had an office beside the front entrance.

People came looking for her.

Ethan ran down the hallway holding a gold key.

Lily froze.

“Where did you get that?”

“In Mommy’s room.”

Victor frowned.

“There shouldn’t be another key.”

Ethan held it out.

It looked almost identical to the first.

But instead of an H, the bow carried a tiny engraved rose.

Lily turned it over.

Numbers were etched along the side.

Victor recognized them.

A bank deposit box number.

Amelia had owned no known private box.

At least none Victor knew about.

Three days later, Victor, Lily, and Detective Monroe entered a private bank vault in Boston.

The gold key opened box 417.

Inside was no money.

No jewelry.

Only a sealed envelope.

And a photograph.

The photograph showed Amelia and Rosa Mason together.

Lily’s mother.

Both women were smiling.

Between them stood a third woman.

Victor stared.

Lily did too.

The woman looked almost exactly like Serena.

But the photograph had been taken twelve years before Serena ever entered Hale Mansion.

On the back, Amelia had written:

If Serena ever comes near Ethan, find her sister first.

Victor looked at Lily.

“Serena has a sister?”

Lily slowly opened the envelope.

The first line answered him.

Serena Vale was never the first Vale woman inside the Hale family.

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And according to Amelia’s final hidden file, the person who began Project Aster was still alive.

TOBE CONTINUED