CHAPTER 5 THE MAP BENEATH THE FLOOR
The library floor had been repaired twice since the trial.
No contractor had reported finding a hidden compartment.
Lily found it because one floorboard produced a different sound beneath her heel.
Daniel returned to the mansion and discovered his daughter kneeling beside the open section.
A brass plate lay beneath the floor.
Lines had been engraved across its surface, connecting dozens of properties throughout New England.
The Whitmore mansion was marked with a circle.
St. Agnes Academy was marked with a square.
A third location near a lake was marked with a triangle and the code W-201.
At the bottom of the plate were the words:
REBECCA WAS HERE.
Daniel touched the engraving.
The letters had been carved by hand.
Elena sat beside him.
“Could your mother have hidden this?”
“She died before this part of the mansion was renovated.”
“Maybe she didn’t die when you thought she did.”
Daniel wanted to reject the possibility.
For decades, he had accepted that his mother was gone.
Hope felt more dangerous than grief.
Mara pointed toward St. Agnes Academy.
“The children called it the Glass House.”
“Why?” Lily asked.
“Because every room had a window in the wall. The adults could see us, but we couldn’t always see them.”
“What did they want you to do?”
“Tell them what frightened us. Tell them what our parents argued about. Tell them who had money. Tell them who would come looking.”
Lily understood immediately.
“They were studying how to separate families.”
Mara nodded.
Daniel examined the map.
“You said they moved you at night. How did you escape?”
“A woman opened my door.”
“Who?”
“I never saw her face.”
“What did she say?”
“She told me to find Lily.”
“Why Lily?”
“She said Lily finished two hundred lessons.”
Lily looked down at her hands.
“They weren’t lessons.”
“I know.”
“Then why did she call them that?”
Mara looked toward the fireplace where Lily had burned the notebook.
“Because someone else was counting too.”
Daniel noticed a small slot at the bottom of the brass plate.
He inserted the Whitmore signet ring.
The plate clicked.
A hidden drawer slid open beneath the floor.
Inside were several photographs, a small key, and a folded child’s drawing.
The drawing showed three women standing beneath a bell tower.
One wore a red dress.
One held a ledger.
The third had no face.
Words had been written beneath them.
THE ONE WITH THE BLUE CUPS IS NOT YOUR MOTHER.
Everyone turned toward the low table beside the window.
Three blue cups sat there.
Elena had used them to bring hot chocolate to Lily and Mara.
Mara backed away from her.
“That’s what she gave us.”
Elena remained still.
“Who?”
“The woman at the Glass House.”
Lily stepped in front of her mother.
“My mom has never been there.”
Mara pointed at Elena.
“She looked exactly like her.”
Daniel picked up the photograph from the drawer.
It showed the entrance of St. Agnes Academy eight years earlier.
A woman stood beside Arthur Bell.
She had Elena’s face.
The scar across her eyebrow was clearly visible.
On the back, someone had written:
ELENA WHITMORE. IDENTITY CONFIRMED.
Elena stared at it.
“Eight years ago, I was living in Paris.”
Daniel remembered.
They had spent that entire year together.
“You couldn’t have been there.”
Clara examined the photo.
“Someone has been using Elena’s identity for nearly a decade.”
Elena took the picture.
Her fingers trembled.
“There’s something I never told you.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“After my mother died, her apartment was searched before I could collect her belongings. My passport, birth certificate, and childhood medical files disappeared.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“I did. The police believed it was ordinary theft.”
“Was anything else taken?”
Elena looked at the scarred woman in the photograph.
“A sealed adoption file.”
Daniel felt the room become smaller.
“Whose adoption?”
“My mother had another daughter before I was born.”
Lily stared at her.
“You have a sister?”
“I don’t know. My mother never told me her name.”
The foundation alarm suddenly activated.
Clara checked her phone.
“The warning came from my office.”
“What warning?” Daniel asked.
“Unauthorized access to the victim database.”
Clara ran from the library.
Daniel followed her into the corridor.
Before they reached the stairs, the lights went out again.
Clara’s phone connected to the internal system.
Her own voice came through the speaker.
“I found Elena’s sister.”
Daniel stopped.
Clara was standing beside him.
The recorded voice continued.
“She is already inside the mansion.”
A scream came from the second floor.
Mara’s scream.
They ran back toward the library.
The room was empty.
Mara was gone.
On the carpet where she had been standing lay Elena’s missing childhood passport.
The photograph had been replaced.
May you like
It now showed the scarred woman outside Lily’s bedroom.
The picture had been taken less than five minutes earlier.
