CHAPTER 3 — THE WOMAN IN WHITE

Margaret approached slowly.

“Give me the boy.”

Elena held Oliver tighter.

“What’s in the syringe?”

“Medication.”

“For whom?”

“Oliver is having an episode.”

“He just spoke.”

“He screamed.”

“He called someone behind that door his mother.”

Margaret’s face remained calm, but her hand trembled.

Nathaniel rushed into the corridor wearing a robe.

“What happened?”

Elena pointed at the nursery.

“There is someone inside.”

Nathaniel froze.

Margaret spoke quickly.

“She’s confused. Oliver wandered again.”

“I saw a hand,” Elena said.

Nathaniel looked at the locked door.

“Margaret, take Oliver upstairs.”

“No.”

Everyone stared at Elena.

She stepped in front of the boy.

“No one touches him until you tell me the truth.”

Nathaniel’s voice dropped.

“You are an employee in my home.”

“And that child is terrified in your home.”

Oliver clung to Elena’s waist.

Nathaniel saw it.

Something in his expression broke.

He ordered Margaret to lower the syringe.

She did not.

“Sir, this is not wise.”

“Lower it.”

Slowly, Margaret obeyed.

Nathaniel unlocked the nursery.

The smell hit Elena first.

Medicine.

Bleach.

And something stale beneath it.

The nursery had been converted into a private medical room. Machines stood beside an antique bed. Blackout curtains covered the windows.

A woman lay beneath white sheets.

She was painfully thin, with long dark hair spread over the pillow. An oxygen tube rested beneath her nose. Her wrists were bruised.

Oliver pulled away from Elena.

“Mom.”

This time, the word came softly.

The woman’s eyes opened.

They were the same blue-gray as Oliver’s.

“Oliver,” she breathed.

He climbed onto the bed and wrapped his arms around her.

Elena covered her mouth.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway, unable to move.

“You said she drowned,” Elena whispered.

Nathaniel looked like a man watching his entire life collapse.

“I believed she had.”

Margaret suddenly turned toward the hall.

Elena blocked her.

“You’re not leaving.”

Margaret’s expression became cold.

“You have no idea what you’re involved in.”

“Then explain it.”

The woman in the bed struggled to sit.

“Her name isn’t Margaret Bell.”

Everyone turned.

Her voice was weak but clear.

“She’s Margaret Voss.”

Nathaniel stared at the housekeeper.

Evelyn continued.

“She worked for my father.”

Margaret’s composed mask finally slipped.

“Evelyn is confused. The medication—”

“The medication you’ve been giving me,” Evelyn said. “To keep me weak.”

Nathaniel moved toward Margaret.

“What did you do?”

Margaret lifted the syringe.

Nathaniel stopped.

“I suggest you think very carefully,” she said.

Elena positioned herself between Margaret and the bed.

“Put it down.”

Margaret laughed without humor.

“You think this family is innocent?”

“No,” Elena said. “I think that child is.”

A security alarm suddenly sounded downstairs.

Margaret glanced toward the hall.

That brief distraction was enough.

Nathaniel grabbed her wrist.

The syringe fell.

Margaret struck him with surprising force and ran.

Elena locked the nursery door.

“Call the police,” she said.

Nathaniel pulled out his phone.

There was no signal.

The house telephone was dead.

Then every light in the mansion went out.

In the darkness, Evelyn gripped Elena’s wrist.

“There’s a tunnel beneath the nursery.”

“A tunnel?”

Evelyn’s eyes filled with terror.

“That’s how Margaret brought me back after she tried to kill me.”

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