CHAPTER 5 — THE SECRET ROOM
The police searched Richard’s house until dawn.
There was no blood.
No sign of forced entry.
No Vanessa.
Her phone lay shattered beneath the staircase.
Detective Hale believed Richard had taken her.
I was not convinced.
Vanessa had lied too easily for too many years.
She had lied about the money Richard accused me of stealing.
She had lied about my mother’s earrings.
She had stood beside him at the funeral and called me an abandoned daughter.
Maybe the disappearance was another performance.
Then one of the officers found scratches along the floor of Richard’s study.
A bookcase had recently been moved.
Behind it was a narrow steel door.
The key from Box 317 fit the lock.
The room beyond it had no windows.
A small cot stood against one wall.
There were restraints attached to the bedframe.
Shelves held medicine bottles, disposable syringes, old newspaper clippings, and boxes of women’s clothing.
Some belonged to my mother.
Others were decades old.
Detective Hale opened a filing cabinet.
Inside were documents connected to properties Richard had purchased under shell companies.
One property stood out.
An abandoned rehabilitation center outside Beaufort, South Carolina.
The building had been closed for seventeen years.
My mother’s journal contained the same address.
Beside it, she had written:
Laura may have been taken here.
A camera tripod stood in the corner.
On a nearby table, officers found several videotapes.
The labels began with dates from my childhood.
Emily’s eighth birthday.
Emily’s high school graduation.
Emily leaves Savannah.
Richard had been recording me.
Watching me.
Even after I moved across the country.
One tape carried a date from six months earlier.
Detective Hale placed it into an old player.
The screen flickered.
My mother appeared.
She was sitting in the secret room, her wrists tied to the chair.
Richard stepped into view.
“You will sign the new will,” he told her.
“No.”
“Then Emily dies first.”
My mother’s voice broke.
“You promised you would leave her alone.”
Richard leaned close to her.
“I promised nothing.”
The recording jumped.
Vanessa entered the room carrying a glass of water.
She did not untie my mother.
She did not call the police.
But after Richard left, Vanessa knelt beside her.
“I can get a message to Emily,” she whispered.
My mother shook her head.
“No. He watches her.”
“Then what do we do?”
My mother looked directly at the camera.
“We make him believe he has won.”
The video ended.
For the first time, I wondered whether Vanessa had been helping my mother in secret.
Detective Hale’s phone rang.
A patrol officer had found Richard’s SUV near the South Carolina border.
There was blood on the passenger seat.
And inside the glove compartment was Vanessa’s funeral veil.
May you like
Pinned to it was a note.
Bring Emily to the old rehabilitation center alone, or your sister joins her real mother.
