Chapter 14 - THE ROOM BEYOND THE WALL
Engineers entered the damaged pool chamber after stabilizing the concrete.
Behind a false wall, they discovered a narrow steel door.
The lock had been recently scratched.
Jason had tried to open it before burning the house.
He failed.
Sarah remembered an old brass key found during renovation.
Jason kept it on a chain around his neck.
That meant he could still enter the hidden room.
Police installed cameras around the property.
They placed motion sensors inside the burned house and beneath the pool deck.
No announcement was made about the discovery.
Ortiz wanted Jason to believe the room remained unguarded.
Inside the chamber, investigators found items belonging to the house’s former owner, a retired accountant named Arthur Bell.
Bell had worked for a private adoption agency connected to Madison Cole’s illegal placement.
He died shortly before Sarah and I purchased the house.
His death had been ruled a heart attack.
The hidden room contained decades of financial records.
Jason had not chosen Sarah only because she was vulnerable.
He had chosen her because she owned the house built over Bell’s evidence.
Paul Denton knew the connection.
Years earlier, Paul handled the property sale.
He realized Bell had hidden proof of the adoption ring.
Jason married Sarah to gain permanent access to the land.
Lucas had been imprisoned near the evidence because Jason believed no one would search beneath an occupied family home.
The truth made every part of our past feel contaminated.
Our kitchen.
Emily’s bedroom.
The pool where she once learned to float.
Jason had viewed all of it as storage for secrets.
Among Bell’s records, agents found a list of children whose identities had been sold.
Some had been taken from living parents.
Others had been declared dead after birth.
Families across the country received calls they had waited years to hear.
The case was no longer about one monster.
It was about a network.
But Jason remained the only person who knew where several missing records had gone.
Ortiz planned to capture him alive.
I asked whether I could help.
“No,” she said.
“You have already been used as bait once.”
“He will come after Emily.”
“That is why she is being moved.”
Emily and I were transferred to a protected house outside the city.
The location was known to only four people.
Sarah went to a separate medical facility.
Rebecca remained with Lucas.
For the first time in days, Emily slept without waking.
At 2:07 a.m., my phone vibrated.
The number was blocked.
A photograph appeared.
May you like
It showed Emily sleeping in the room beside mine.
The picture had been taken from inside the house.
