Chapter 4 - The Empty Rooms
The basement was not empty.
It was worse.
It had been cleaned.
Behind a wine cellar shelf, police found a steel door leading into a corridor that did not appear on the mansion's architectural plans.
Four small rooms lined the passage.
Each contained a narrow bed.
Hooks had been installed on the walls at child height.
Two rooms contained children's clothing.
One contained boxes of medication.
The fourth contained nothing except a floor drain and a camera mounted near the ceiling.
But there were no children.
Someone had moved them.
Recently.
One mattress was still warm.
Marcus stared at it for several seconds.
“Someone knew we were coming.”
I looked at him.
“Or someone upstairs warned them.”
The detective's eyes moved toward the ceiling.
Above us, dozens of politicians, executives, judges, and donors were being interviewed.
Any one of them could have sent a message.
Any one of them could have been part of it.
Lucy had been transported to a hospital under police protection.
Before she left, she refused to release my hand until Marcus promised I could visit her.
As the ambulance doors closed, she whispered something I almost did not hear.
“Ask about the blue room.”
I told Marcus immediately.
His face hardened.
There was no blue room on the basement corridor.
There was no blue room listed anywhere on the mansion plans.
Sebastian spent the night telling police he knew nothing.
By sunrise, his public relations team had released a statement expressing horror that an unknown criminal organization had exploited unused sections of the Vale estate.
They portrayed him as a victim.
By breakfast, television commentators were debating whether I should be charged with destruction of property.
By noon, photographs of me holding the axe were everywhere.
They called me the Gala Axewoman.
They called me obsessed.
Dangerous.
Unstable.
Then they found my psychiatric records online.
Records I had never made public.
I had attended grief counseling after Claire died.
Someone leaked selected pages that described insomnia, anger, and guilt.
None of the pages mentioning my improvement appeared.
Sebastian was doing exactly what Claire predicted.
He was destroying the witness before the witness could destroy him.
At four that afternoon, I returned to my apartment.
The door was unlocked.
I knew I had locked it.
Nothing appeared stolen.
Then I walked into my bedroom.
A photograph had been placed on my pillow.
It showed Claire standing beside a small girl wearing a blue dress.
On the back, someone had written four words.
SHE FOUND THE BLUE ROOM.
May you like
Below that was a date.
Three days before Claire died.
