Chapter 3 - THE ROOM WITH NO WINDOWS
Elena didn't sleep.
She sat in the small staff cottage behind Blackwood Estate, staring at the photograph beside her bed.
Maisie smiled from a field of wildflowers.
Her curls were tangled.
Her cheeks were dirty.
Her little hands held a yellow butterfly net.
Elena touched the photograph.
“Where are you, baby?”
For six months, she'd asked that question into an empty room.
Now she was terrified someone might finally answer.
The next morning, Julian summoned his security chief.
Gabriel Mercer was a broad-shouldered former military officer with a scar above his left eyebrow.
He had worked for Julian for nine years.
Julian trusted him with everything.
Almost everything.
“Find out where Clara got the necklace,” Julian ordered.
Gabriel nodded.
“And the groundskeeper?”
“Leave her alone.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Sir, her background—”
“I know.”
“She's a risk.”
Julian's expression hardened.
“My daughter spoke because of her.”
Gabriel looked away.
“That doesn't mean she's safe.”
Julian leaned forward.
“Then find out what happened before you decide who the threat is.”
Elena returned to the gardens.
She needed to work.
Needed the smell of wet earth.
Needed something she could control.
But her hands trembled so badly she dropped a trowel twice.
At noon, Clara appeared near the greenhouse with her nanny.
The little girl wore a pale yellow coat.
She carried her stuffed rabbit.
When she saw Elena, she ran.
“Ellie!”
Elena froze.
Maisie had called her Ellie.
Not Mommy.
Not Mama.
Ellie.
It had begun when Maisie was learning to speak and couldn't pronounce Elena.
The nickname had stayed.
Elena knelt.
Clara threw her arms around her.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
The nanny stared.
“Miss Clara, you're not supposed to run.”
Clara ignored her.
Elena looked up.
“It's all right.”
Inside the greenhouse, Clara sat beside a tray of seedlings.
Elena showed her how to press seeds into soft soil.
The child watched carefully.
Then asked:
“Do flowers remember?”
Elena smiled sadly.
“Remember what?”
“People.”
Elena considered.
“I think flowers remember the hands that cared for them.”
Clara looked down.
“Maisie liked flowers.”
Elena's breath caught.
“You knew Maisie?”
Clara nodded.
“Little Maisie.”
Elena swallowed.
“Where did you meet her?”
The child pressed a seed into the soil.
“At the quiet house.”
Elena leaned closer.
“What quiet house?”
Clara's expression changed.
She looked toward the greenhouse door.
Then whispered:
“Don't tell the man with the silver ring.”
Elena felt cold.
“Which man?”
Clara shook her head.
“He gets angry.”
That afternoon, Elena searched her memory.
The farmhouse fire.
The missing child.
The false report.
The necklace.
The quiet house.
The room with no windows.
And a man with a silver ring.
She remembered something.
Two weeks before the fire, a stranger had visited her farmhouse.
He claimed to be a representative from an insurance company.
He wore a dark coat.
Spoke politely.
Asked strange questions about Maisie's schedule.
And wore a heavy silver ring on his right hand.
Elena had forgotten his name.
But she remembered the ring.
A black stone.
A carved letter V.
She stared toward the mansion.
Vance.
May you like
Then whispered:
“Oh, God.”
