Chapter 7 - THE SECOND DISAPPEARANCE
William became impossible to control.
He shouted at hospital security.
At police.
At himself.
Detective Brooks pulled surveillance footage.
A nurse had entered Ethan’s room fifteen minutes earlier.
Except she was not a nurse.
Clara recognized her immediately.
“Isabella.”
She had changed her hair.
Glasses.
Medical scrubs.
But it was her.
William watched the footage three times.
Then a message arrived on his phone.
COME HOME ALONE.
BRING CLARA’S RECORDING.
NO POLICE.
OR THE BOY GOES BACK INTO THE DARK.
William started walking.
Brooks blocked him.
“You are not going alone.”
“That’s my son.”
“And walking into a trap won’t save him.”
I remembered something Ethan had said.
“She knows what I found.”
Not what Rebecca found.
What Ethan found.
I returned to the wooden box.
There had been a false bottom.
Inside was a folded drawing.
Ethan had drawn the manor.
Beneath it was a tunnel.
William recognized it.
“There used to be a wine passage beneath the east wing.”
Police searched the plans.
No tunnel appeared.
Clara smiled bitterly.
“My father never put the important rooms on blueprints.”
We entered through the old cellar.
Behind a rack of wine bottles, Brooks found a steel door.
The brass key fit.
The tunnel beyond smelled damp and ancient.
We moved through darkness.
Then we heard Ethan.
“Dad?”
William ran.
We found him tied to a chair.
Alive.
Isabella stood behind him.
She held a knife.
“Stop.”
William froze.
“Let him go.”
“Give me the drive.”
Police surrounded the chamber from another passage.
Isabella realized she was trapped.
Her confidence vanished.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
Brooks raised her weapon.
“Put down the knife.”
Isabella started crying.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
“Step away from the child.”
“Margaret will destroy me.”
William stared at her.
“Then testify against her.”
Isabella looked toward him.
For one second, I thought she might surrender.
Then a gunshot exploded somewhere behind us.
Isabella fell.
Chaos erupted.
Brooks pulled Ethan down.
William covered him.
Officers rushed toward the passage.
The shooter escaped.
But Isabella was still breathing.
As paramedics lifted her onto a stretcher, she grabbed my wrist.
“Claire.”
“What?”
Her lips barely moved.
“Your mother left something inside the blue room.”
“What blue room?”
Isabella’s eyes closed.
And behind us, Clara whispered.
“There is no blue room in Sterling Manor.”
May you like
Then she looked at William.
“But there was one in your mother’s house.”
