Chapter 3 - The Blue Room That Was Never Meant To Open Again
I did not let Eleanor leave that house.
I told one of the kitchen staff to keep her in the dining room and called an old friend in the local sheriff’s office, not to make a formal report yet, but to let him know I might need him before the night was over. Then I took Brett and Olivia upstairs.
The blue room had once belonged to Claire whenever she visited with Daniel and Olivia. After the so-called accident, I had closed it myself. I couldn’t bear the sight of the half-folded baby blankets, the framed photo of my daughter laughing near the window, the pale wallpaper with tiny white birds. I had told myself I was preserving memory.
Now I wondered if I had really been preserving evidence.
Olivia pointed toward the large dollhouse in the corner.
“Back there.”
I moved it carefully away from the wall.
Behind it, wedged against the baseboard, was a narrow panel slightly out of alignment. I pried it loose with my fingers. Inside was a small hidden cavity wrapped in cloth.
The recorder case.
And taped beneath it, so flat and carefully hidden I might have missed it, was a tiny memory card.
Brett let out a shaky breath. “Grandma said Aunt Claire was sentimental. She made Calvin search this room after the funeral.”
“Then he missed this,” I said.
Olivia looked up at me with wide eyes. “Mommy hid it?”
I nodded. “Yes, sweetheart. I think she did.”
Back in the library, I found an adapter and slid the memory card into my laptop. There were four audio files inside. The first had the same date as the night Claire and Daniel died. The second was labeled For Dad Only.
My hand shook a little before I opened it.
Claire’s face didn’t appear—only her voice.
“Dad, if you’re hearing this, then I waited too long to tell you in person. Daniel finally found proof that Eleanor has been moving money out of Olivia’s trust and forging his signatures on the Vance transfer documents. We were leaving tonight. If she tries to say we were emotional or reckless, don’t believe her. She knows exactly what we found.”
I felt Brett go rigid beside me.
Claire kept going.
“The original contract is in the cedar trunk. If we don’t make it to your house, that’s where you start.”
The message ended there.
I closed my eyes.
Then I opened them and went straight to the old cedar trunk at the foot of the guest bed.
The trunk was still there.
The original contract was not.
Inside there was only a torn strip of singed blue leather.
May you like
And someone had gotten there before me.
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