Chapter 3 - The Locked Room
The police removed Nathan from the Harrington estate in handcuffs shortly after midnight.
Emily watched through the upstairs window as her husband was placed inside a patrol car.
Only six hours earlier, they had been preparing for a family celebration honoring Nathan’s late father.
Now Nathan was being investigated for attempted murder.
The chandelier cable had been deliberately weakened.
A maintenance technician confirmed it.
The fresh cuts were uneven and recent.
The wire cutters matched the marks.
Nathan denied everything.
He claimed someone had planted the cutters in his coat.
No one believed him.
Almost no one.
Margaret refused to speak to police without an attorney.
By two in the morning, most of the guests were gone.
Emily sat in the library with Rosa.
Her unborn daughter moved beneath her palm.
That movement was the only thing keeping Emily from falling apart.
Rosa brought her tea.
Emily did not touch it.
“Why did Nathan say you would understand the secret too?”
Rosa’s hands stopped.
“I don’t know.”
Emily looked at her.
“Don’t lie to me tonight.”
Rosa lowered her eyes.
“I have worked here for twenty-three years.”
“I know.”
“I worked for Nathan’s father before Nathan finished high school.”
Emily waited.
Rosa swallowed.
“This house has rooms people stopped using after Mr. Harrington died.”
Emily remembered the east wing.
Nathan had always told her it was structurally unsafe.
One door in particular had remained locked throughout their marriage.
A heavy walnut door at the end of the second-floor corridor.
“What’s behind the locked room?”
Rosa looked toward the hallway.
“Things your husband never wanted you to see.”
Emily stood.
“Show me.”
“Mrs. Carter.”
“Emily.”
Rosa looked at her.
“My name is Emily.”
The maid nodded slowly.
“Emily, some secrets do not protect people when they come out.”
“They destroy them.”
Emily thought of Nathan holding the knife.
“He already tried to destroy me.”
Rosa reached beneath her uniform collar.
A tiny brass key hung from a thin chain.
Emily stared at it.
“You’ve had the key all this time?”
Rosa nodded.
“Your father-in-law gave it to me three days before he died.”
Emily felt cold.
“Nathan said his father died suddenly from a heart attack.”
Rosa’s eyes filled with something darker than grief.
“That is what the family told everyone.”
She walked toward the hallway.
Emily followed.
They crossed the silent mansion together.
At the end of the east corridor, Rosa inserted the brass key into the forbidden door.
The lock clicked.
Inside was an office covered in dust.
A desk sat beneath a sheet.
Metal filing cabinets lined one wall.
And on the far side of the room stood dozens of framed photographs.
Emily stepped closer.
Her heart stopped.
Every photograph showed the same woman.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Beautiful.
And in several pictures, visibly pregnant.
Emily recognized her.
She had seen that face in an old newspaper article years ago.
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The woman was Nathan’s first wife.
The wife everyone said had died in a car accident.
