Chapter 4 - THE HIDDEN ROOM
The room above the garage had no windows.
Daniel had to remove an entire shelving unit to reveal the door.
The key marked 317 fit.
Inside, the air smelled like paper and dust.
Margaret had already described the photograph.
She hadn’t described the wall.
My entire childhood was on it.
School pictures.
Birthday parties.
My college graduation.
A candid photograph of me leaving my first job.
Another of Daniel and me outside the restaurant where we had our first date.
Another from our wedding.
I turned toward Daniel.
“You knew about these?”
His face was pale.
“No.”
There were photographs of him too.
Some from childhood.
Some from college.
Several showed the two of us before we had ever met.
Same charity gala.
Same airport terminal.
Same street in Washington.
Never together.
Just close.
My stomach twisted.
“What is this?”
Margaret walked toward an old metal desk.
“This is why I tried to get you out.”
I followed her.
“You thought throwing me onto the driveway would solve this?”
“I thought if you left voluntarily, the trust amendment could be signed and Hawthorne transferred without drawing attention.”
“Transferred to whom?”
“Harris.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So your solution was to give them exactly what they wanted?”
“My solution was to keep you alive.”
I stopped.
She looked at me.
“Robert Bennett spent twelve years trying to expose these people.”
“And then he died.”
“Yes.”
“Charles Hale tried to help him.”
“And then he died.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“My father died of a heart attack.”
Margaret looked at him.
“That’s what the certificate says.”
Daniel stared at her.
The room fell silent.
I felt almost sorry for him.
Almost.
Then I remembered the look on his face downstairs.
Recognition.
“You knew my father’s death was connected to your family.”
Daniel rubbed his hands over his face.
“I knew there was a connection.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“Three years.”
“I found his name in the trust.”
“And you never told me.”
“I asked my mother.”
“And believed whatever she said.”
“She told me your father had uncovered financial misconduct.”
“That’s all?”
Daniel hesitated.
I felt something inside me fracture.
“What else?”
“She said your father became unstable.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
I looked at her.
“You told him my father was crazy?”
“I said Robert became paranoid.”
“He had people following him.”
“He thought he did.”
“He was right.”
“I know that now.”
Daniel stepped toward me.
“Grace, I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I thought bringing it up would hurt you.”
I laughed.
“Is that what you told yourself?”
He stopped.
“You were afraid.”
“Yes.”
“Of what?”
“That you’d think my family killed him.”
I stared at him.
“Did they?”
“I don’t know.”
That was the worst answer.
Because I believed him.
He truly didn’t know.
We searched the room.
Charles had preserved everything.
Financial records.
Handwritten timelines.
Old police reports.
A copy of my father’s death certificate.
Daniel opened it.
“Vehicle accident.”
I knew every word.
My father’s car had supposedly gone through a guardrail during heavy rain.
His body had been found inside after the vehicle caught fire.
Except Charles had circled one line.
Dental identification unavailable.
Below it he had written:
Then how did they identify Robert?
My skin went cold.
I took the page.
The official report said identification had been made from personal effects.
Wallet.
Watch.
Wedding ring.
My father had not worn a wedding ring after my mother died.
I knew that.
He kept both rings in his desk.
I had seen them hundreds of times.
“This is wrong.”
Daniel looked at me.
“What?”
“The ring.”
My voice shook.
“My father never wore one.”
Margaret stared.
I pointed at the report.
“They said a wedding ring helped identify him.”
I looked at Daniel.
“That wasn’t my father.”
Nobody spoke.
I moved through the papers faster.
Police photographs.
A burned sedan.
A blackened watch.
License plate.
The body was almost entirely concealed.
There was no photograph I could recognize.
Then Daniel found an envelope.
GRACE.
My father’s handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
My legs nearly gave out.
I opened it.
Inside was one piece of paper.
Only four lines.
Gracie,
If this reaches you, they failed to erase everything.
Do not trust the man who tells you I died on Hawthorne Road.
I never made it to Hawthorne Road.
I read the last sentence three times.
Then I noticed something on the back.
A set of numbers.
38.214.
-77.362.
Daniel stared.
“Coordinates.”
Margaret whispered, “Virginia.”
Daniel entered them into his phone.
The location appeared.
A rural road.
Forest.
A lake.
And a property marker.
Hawthorne House.
My father had left directions to the house itself.
But beneath the coordinates was another notation.
Beneath the room where Grace stopped crying.
My head filled with a scream.
A little girl’s scream.
Mine.
And suddenly I remembered a blue room.
Wallpaper with tiny silver stars.
My father kneeling on the floor.
He was pulling up a board beneath the bed.
He pushed a metal box underneath.
Then he looked at me.
“Gracie.”
“Whatever happens downstairs, you stay here.”
I could hear myself crying.
“Are you coming back?”
He touched my face.
“I will always try.”
Then someone began pounding on the door.
My father turned.
The memory vanished.
I opened my eyes.
Daniel was holding me.
This time I didn’t push him away.
“I know where it is.”
Margaret stared.
I looked at the photograph of nine-year-old me.
“I know what my father hid.”
Outside, tires crunched against gravel.
We all turned.
Daniel crossed to the narrow ventilation opening and looked down.
The black sedan was back.
But Jonathan Harris wasn’t alone.
Two men got out with him.
Neither carried a briefcase.
One reached beneath his jacket.
Daniel pulled us away from the wall.
“We need to leave.”
Margaret shook her head.
“The front gate is controlled remotely.”
“I can override it.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“You don’t understand.”
“The gate isn’t keeping them out.”
My stomach dropped.
Margaret pointed toward the garage door below us.
May you like
“It’s keeping us in.”
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