Chapter 3 - The Woman Behind the Door Was Supposed to Have Left Eight Months Earlier
Tristan called emergency services himself.
Selene tried once to stop him.
“You don’t understand what’s happening.”
He looked at her.
“Then explain.”
She said nothing.
That ended the conversation.
Responders arrived within minutes.
The first inspection showed the metal door was part of an old reinforced storm room built decades earlier into the mansion’s service wing.
The original architectural plans Tristan had when he bought the house did not show it because later renovations had enclosed the entrance.
But somebody had reopened it recently.
Then covered it again with new plaster.
A rescue technician found that the outside locking mechanism had been modified.
The room could be secured from the hallway.
Not opened from inside.
That changed the entire tone.
The team cut through the lock.
When the door finally swung inward, stale air rushed out.
A woman sat on the floor against the back wall.
Weak.
Dehydrated.
Alive.
Brown hair tangled around her face.
Cardigan dirty.
Hands trembling.
Tristan recognized her immediately.
“Anna?”
Anna Whitaker looked up.
Piper’s former nanny.
The woman who had cared for his daughter for nearly four years.
The woman who supposedly resigned eight months earlier without saying goodbye.
Anna’s eyes moved past him.
Toward the hallway.
“Piper?”
The little girl heard her name.
“Miss Anna?”
Anna began crying.
Tristan stared between them.
Eight months earlier, Selene had shown him Anna’s resignation email.
He remembered every line.
I can no longer continue in this household. Please accept my resignation effective immediately.
No explanation.
No farewell to Piper.
No request for final pay.
Selene said:
“She was becoming too attached to Piper anyway.”
Tristan had been angry.
Piper had been devastated.
Now Anna was sitting inside a hidden room in his house.
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And Selene was the only person who appeared to know why.
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