Chapter 1: The Door Behind Room 237
Chapter 1: The Door Behind Room 237
The bedroom door creaked open.
For one endless second, nobody spoke.
Maverick wasn't embracing Penelope.
He wasn't even looking at me.
He was kneeling beside the bed, his face pale, holding the trembling hand of someone I never expected to see.
My father.
"No..." I whispered.
Dad froze.
His eyes widened as though he'd seen a ghost.
The woman sitting on the bed slowly turned around.
It was Vivian.
My father's younger sister.
The aunt who had vanished from our lives twenty-two years earlier after being accused of stealing nearly two million dollars from the family business.
According to every story I'd ever heard...
She had disappeared overseas.
No one had seen her since.
Yet here she was.
Older.
Weaker.
Connected to oxygen tubing.
And very much alive.
Grandma's cane slipped from her hand and struck the floor.
"Vivian..."
Tears immediately filled the old woman's eyes.
"I buried you in my heart."
Vivian looked at her sister with quiet sorrow.
"You buried the wrong daughter."
Nobody understood.
Least of all me.
I stared at Maverick.
"What is happening?"
He slowly stood.
"I was trying to stop this wedding."
The words hit harder than any slap.
Before I could answer, Penelope stepped forward.
She wasn't crying.
She looked terrified.
"I found Vivian three months ago."
Silence.
"My father worked at the hospital where she'd been admitted under another name."
"I didn't know who she was until she saw a picture of Eleanor..."
She looked directly at me.
"...and started crying."
Every heartbeat echoed through the room.
Maverick reached into his jacket.
He pulled out a thick brown envelope.
"I hired a private investigator after Vivian told me your family had been living a lie."
Dad's face drained of color.
Inside the envelope were court documents...
Bank transfers...
Medical records...
And one faded photograph.
It showed my father.
Standing beside the family safe.
The same night Aunt Vivian supposedly stole the money.
May you like
Dad whispered only one sentence.
"I prayed nobody would ever find that picture."
