Chapter 3 - The Boy Behind the Wall
The fire crew found three bodies before dawn.
None belonged to Victoria.
One was a waiter named Samuel Pierce. Another was a security guard stationed near the east staircase. The third was so badly burned that identification would require dental records.
Charles waited in an ambulance beside Noah while paramedics treated the boy for smoke inhalation and burns.
Evelyn sat opposite them, wrapped in a gray emergency blanket. Her hair smelled of smoke. Blood from a cut on her temple had dried along her cheek.
Noah would not let go of her hand.
Detective Lena Cross arrived shortly after four in the morning.
She wore a dark coat over plain clothes and carried herself with the quiet confidence of someone who had learned that frightened people often revealed more when no one rushed them.
She looked at Charles first.
“Your wife is still missing.”
Charles’s jaw tightened.
“She escaped.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
“There was a car waiting.”
“There may have been.”
“You think she’s dead?”
“I think we should avoid deciding what happened before we have evidence.”
Charles looked toward the burning remains of his home.
“My son said she locked him inside.”
“I’ll need to speak with him.”
“No.”
Noah flinched.
Charles lowered his voice.
“He nearly died.”
“And whatever he remembers may tell us who tried to kill him.”
Evelyn felt Noah’s fingers tighten.
“I’ll stay with him,” she said.
Detective Cross pulled a folding chair closer.
“Noah, I’m Lena. You’re not in trouble. I only need you to tell me what happened after you left dinner.”
Noah stared at the floor.
“Victoria followed me upstairs.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She asked what I told Evelyn.”
Evelyn exchanged a glance with Charles.
“What had you told her?” Cross asked.
“That I heard Victoria and Uncle Marcus talking.”
“About the fire?”
Noah shook his head.
“About my birthday.”
“What did they say?”
Noah’s breathing became uneven.
Evelyn squeezed his hand.
“You can take your time.”
“They were in Grandmother Eleanor’s old sitting room. The door wasn’t closed all the way. Uncle Marcus said they only had thirty days. Victoria said the trust would wake up when I turned thirteen.”
Detective Cross wrote something in her notebook.
“Those exact words?”
Noah nodded.
“What happened next?”
“At dinner, Victoria whispered that she knew I was listening.”
Charles went pale.
“She told me to go upstairs and wait in my room. She said if I made a scene, something bad would happen to Evelyn.”
Evelyn felt cold despite the blanket.
“Noah…”
“I went upstairs. She came in after me and took my phone. Then she told me my mother should have taken me with her when she died.”
Charles stood so quickly that the ambulance rocked.
“Charles,” Evelyn said.
He turned away, pressing both hands against the metal wall.
Detective Cross continued gently.
“Did Victoria start the fire?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she do after locking the door?”
“She stood outside and talked to someone.”
“Could you hear what she said?”
Noah closed his eyes.
“She said, ‘The boy is secured.’ Then a man said, ‘Leave before the alarms.’”
Charles looked back.
“A man was there?”
“I only heard him.”
“Was it Marcus?” Evelyn asked.
Noah hesitated.
“I don’t think so.”
Detective Cross leaned forward.
“What happened when the fire started?”
“The lights went out. Smoke came under the door. I tried the window, but it wouldn’t open.”
“The windows were sealed during renovation,” Charles said, horrified.
Noah nodded.
“I kicked the door. Nobody came.”
Evelyn remembered reaching the east corridor through the servants’ stairs. The main passage had already been filled with smoke. She had heard a faint pounding behind the wall, not the door.
“How did you get behind the panel?” she asked.
Noah looked at her.
“Grandmother showed me.”
Everyone went silent.
Charles sat down slowly.
“Your grandmother died before you were born.”
“I know.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Noah stared toward the scorched brass key in the evidence bag on Detective Cross’s lap.
“The woman in the green room called herself Grandmother.”
“What green room?” Cross asked.
“The room behind my wall.”
Charles frowned.
“There is no room behind your wall.”
“Yes, there is.”
Noah described a narrow hidden passage concealed behind a wooden panel near his wardrobe. He said he had first discovered it six months earlier when a woman’s voice called his name from the other side.
At first he thought the house was haunted.
Then he found the brass key under his pillow.
The key opened a panel hidden behind the wardrobe trim.
Beyond it was a corridor leading to a room with green wallpaper, a desk, an old phonograph, and a portrait of Eleanor Blackwood.
“Was the woman physically there?” Detective Cross asked.
Noah shook his head.
“She spoke through a machine.”
“A recording?”
“I don’t know. She answered questions.”
Charles looked at Evelyn.
“That’s impossible.”
Noah’s expression hardened.
“She told me where to hide when the fire came.”
A firefighter approached the ambulance.
“Mr. Blackwood?”
Charles stepped outside.
The firefighter handed him a blackened metal box.
“We found this inside a cavity behind your son’s room. It was protected by a fireproof shell.”
Charles placed the box on the ambulance floor.
The brass key fitted the lock.
Inside were photographs, old letters, several cassette tapes, and a sealed envelope addressed in Eleanor Blackwood’s handwriting.
For Charles, when Noah is twelve.
Charles touched the envelope but did not open it.
Beneath it lay a photograph of Eleanor standing beside another woman.
The second woman held a newborn child.
On the back, someone had written:
The second son must never be entered into the family registry.
Charles stared at the words.
“My mother had another child.”
Detective Cross picked up the photograph.
“Do you recognize the woman holding the baby?”
Evelyn did.
She had seen the same face in an old staff photograph in the foundation archives.
Her name was Margaret Vale.
A housekeeper who had disappeared fourteen years ago.
According to the estate records, Margaret died in a railway accident.
But the body had never been found.
Evelyn looked at the unidentified burned remains being carried from the mansion.
A terrible possibility formed in her mind.
May you like
Perhaps the third body was not a victim of the fire.
Perhaps someone had brought a body into the manor to make the world believe a missing woman was dead again.
