CHAPTER 3 — The Letter Behind the Nursery Wall
Detectives arrived within twenty minutes.
The evidence from the security cameras was overwhelming.
But Sophie remained unusually quiet.
As paramedics cleaned the scrapes on her knees, she whispered something that stopped Daniel cold.
"It wasn't only her."
He knelt beside her.
"What do you mean?"
Sophie hesitated.
Then pointed upstairs.
"In Mommy's room."
Daniel's wife had passed away three years earlier.
The room had remained untouched ever since.
Confused, he carried Sophie upstairs.
She walked to the nursery wall.
The one covered with painted stars.
Then she tapped a loose wooden panel.
"My nanny gets angry when I look here."
Daniel carefully removed the panel.
Inside was a small metal box.
There were dozens of handwritten letters.
Every one addressed to him.
None had ever been mailed.
The first began:
Dear Daddy,
I wanted to tell you the nanny was mean.
She said you were too busy.
The second:
Daddy,
She threw away the picture I drew for you.
The third:
Daddy,
She says Mom wouldn't love me if she were alive.
Daniel's hands trembled.
The final letter was stained with tears.
Daddy,
I don't tell you anymore because she says you'll think I'm lying.
I still wait by the window every afternoon anyway.
Daniel lowered the letter.
His daughter hadn't stopped asking for help.
She had simply stopped believing anyone would hear her.
Then the lead detective entered the room.
"Mr. Whitmore..."
"We searched the nanny's bedroom."
He placed several folders on the table.
Hidden cameras.
Bank statements.
Payments from an unknown account.
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Someone had been paying the nanny to stay inside the mansion.
Someone with access to the Whitmore family fortune.
