Chapter 15 - the knocking begins again
The first DNA results arrived one week later.
Julian was Victoria’s biological son.
That should have ended the question raised by the photograph.
It did not.
Subject J’s genetic profile had been preserved in a St. Agnes medical file. The testing laboratory found that the boy had been closely related to Julian’s father.
A brother.
A nephew.
Possibly another son.
The records were too incomplete to determine which.
Julian returned to Ashford House after meeting investigators. The mansion had grown quiet. Victoria had moved temporarily to Claire’s apartment. Elena and Nora were staying in the garden cottage under police protection.
The chapel flowers were gone.
The hidden passages had been mapped and sealed with temporary security doors. Every room beneath the eastern wing had been searched twice.
Nothing should have remained undiscovered.
At midnight, Julian sat alone in his father’s study.
On the desk lay Elena’s notes from Bellweather Station.
She had finally given them to him.
Evelyn had been telling the truth about one thing.
The notes were not an investigation of St. Agnes.
They were an investigation of Julian.
The pages contained his school history, medical records, childhood photographs and interviews with former Ashford employees. Elena had begun collecting the information six months before they met.
At the top of the first page, she had written:
JULIAN ASHFORD MAY NOT BE THE ORIGINAL HEIR.
He heard the study door open.
Elena stood in the doorway.
“You read them.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“That has become everyone’s answer.”
She entered but remained near the door.
“Iris told me an Ashford child had been replaced. I thought it might be you.”
“The DNA test says Victoria is my mother.”
“St. Agnes used biological relatives when possible. It made replacements harder to detect.”
Julian looked at her.
“You still think I replaced Subject J.”
“I think Subject J was created for a reason.”
Nora appeared behind Elena, holding the old photograph.
She looked sleepy but determined.
“There’s something under the picture.”
Julian took it from her.
The photograph had begun separating from its cardboard backing. Inside was a thin sheet of transparent film.
Claire arrived moments later with a portable projector recovered from the nursery. They placed the film against the light.
A floor plan appeared on the study wall.
It showed Ashford House.
One room had been marked beneath the western wing, far from the known St. Agnes passages.
Beside it were two words.
ORIGINAL NURSERY.
Mrs. Bell joined them and examined the plan.
“There is no basement beneath the western wing.”
“There wasn’t supposed to be one beneath the chapel either,” Claire said.
They followed the floor plan to a corridor behind Julian’s childhood bedroom.
The wall appeared solid.
Nora pressed her ear against it.
“Someone is moving.”
Elena pulled her away.
“The house is empty.”
A soft knock came through the wall.
Three times.
A pause.
Three more times.
The same signal Nora had used beneath the chapel.
Julian found a crescent-shaped hollow near the baseboard. He inserted one of his father’s cuff links.
Nothing happened.
Claire inserted her pendant beside it.
A mechanism shifted behind the plaster.
A narrow section of wall opened.
Cold air moved into the corridor.
Beyond it was a staircase descending into darkness.
Julian switched on his phone light.
The steps were covered in fresh footprints.
Someone had used the passage recently.
At the bottom, they found a nursery almost identical to the one beneath the eastern wing. Unlike the abandoned room, this one had electricity.
A lamp glowed beside a neatly made bed.
Modern clothes hung inside a wardrobe.
A cup of tea was still warm.
On the wall were hundreds of photographs of Julian, Claire, Elena and Nora.
Some had been taken only days earlier.
A large map connected the Ashford family to the surviving members of the St. Agnes board.
In the center was a photograph of Iris.
Beneath it, someone had written:
SHE IS NOT E-19.
Nora looked toward a desk in the corner.
A video monitor showed a live security feed from the mansion’s front gate.
A black car had stopped outside.
The rear door opened.
A woman stepped onto the driveway.
She had Elena’s eyes.
But she was not Elena, Evelyn or Iris.
The woman looked directly into the gate camera and raised a phone.
Julian’s phone began ringing.
The caller ID showed his father’s private number.
A number disconnected on the day he died.
Julian answered but said nothing.
A man breathed slowly on the other end.
Then a familiar voice spoke.
“You opened the original nursery.”
Julian gripped the phone.
“Who are you?”
The man ignored the question.
“Take Nora and leave the house before the woman at the gate enters.”
Elena moved closer to the monitor.
The woman outside smiled at the camera.
Nora backed away from the screen.
“I know her.”
Julian looked at the child.
“From where?”
Nora pointed toward the woman.
“She was there when they gave me my name.”
The lights inside the hidden nursery went out.
Upstairs, the front door opened.
Slow footsteps crossed the entrance hall.
Then the wall behind Julian closed, sealing all four of them inside.
In the darkness, a second phone began ringing beneath the neatly made bed.
Nora reached down and found it.
A message glowed across the screen.
WELCOME HOME, SUBJECT J.
Above them, the footsteps stopped.
May you like
A woman knocked three times on the hidden wall.
Then she called Julian by a name he had never heard before.
