Chapter 3 - MY FATHER’S LAST ROOM
The fire department contained the flames before they spread beyond the metal box.
Detective Morales recovered fragments of documents, melted plastic, and part of a digital recorder. Someone had entered the hidden room during the blackout and tried to destroy whatever my father had stored there.
Eleanor stood in the doorway with tears in her eyes.
“This is cruel,” she whispered. “Someone is trying to blame me for Richard’s death.”
I held up the photograph. “Were you meeting him in this room?”
“I was his wife. I met him everywhere.”
“My father stopped sharing a bedroom with you six months before he died.”
Victor stepped forward. “That is none of your business.”
“It became my business when she pushed me down the stairs.”
Ethan found a small fireproof envelope wedged beneath a cabinet. The outside was scorched, but my name was still visible.
CLAIRE ONLY.
Detective Morales opened it with gloved hands.
Inside was a bank deposit receipt, a handwritten list of dates, and one sentence in my father’s writing:
If Claire returns, tell her the accident was planned.
My legs weakened.
My father had died eighteen months earlier when his car went through a guardrail on a mountain road. Police called it driver error during heavy rain.
“What accident?” Eleanor asked.
I stared at her. “You know exactly which one.”
She laughed once, sharp and nervous. “Richard was grieving. He became paranoid.”
“Grieving what?”
No one answered.
Ethan studied the list of dates. “These match the months before Richard died.”
Beside each date was a payment between fifty and eighty thousand dollars, all sent to a company called Green River Consulting.
Detective Morales searched the name on her tablet.
“The company was dissolved two weeks after Mr. Hawthorne’s death.”
“Who owned it?” I asked.
She looked toward Victor.
“Victor Hawthorne.”
The room went still.
Victor did not deny it. “It was a legitimate consulting business.”
“For what?” Ethan asked.
“Private estate planning.”
“Why did Richard pay you nearly half a million dollars?”
Victor loosened his tie. “Family matters.”
A police officer entered carrying a laptop.
“Detective, we restored part of the security backup. There is video from the foyer before the blackout.”
We watched the grainy footage.
Eleanor pushed me.
Ethan ran.
The lights died.
During the darkness, an infrared camera continued recording.
A figure moved behind me, tore the key from the chain, and crossed toward the portrait.
The person’s face was hidden, but the right hand wore a heavy signet ring.
Victor looked down.
The same black stone ring rested on his finger.
He pulled it off too late.
Then Rosa screamed from upstairs.
We found her locked inside my father’s old bedroom.
On the mirror, written in lipstick, were five words:
May you like
THE MAID WILL BE NEXT.
She Came Back
