Chapter 5 - THE GIRL INSIDE THE WALL
The voice belonged to a child.
That fact transformed fear into urgency.
Owen and two officers traced the sound to a narrow section behind the surveillance shelves. The wall appeared solid, but the blueprint showed an unused ventilation chamber beyond it.
Adrian struck the panel with the butt of a flashlight. Hollow.
They found the release hidden beneath the carved chair.
A black door, no taller than Adrian’s shoulder, opened inward.
The chamber beyond smelled of dust, antiseptic, and fear.
A girl sat on a mattress under a battery lamp.
She appeared nine or ten years old. Her dark hair had been cut unevenly. She wore a gray sweater several sizes too large and clutched a stack of index cards bound with string.
When the door opened, she raised a kitchen knife.
“Stay back.”
Adrian lowered his hands. “We’re not going to hurt you.”
“You work for her.”
“No.”
“You’re wearing his face.”
The words unsettled him.
Rachel stepped forward. “My name is Rachel. This is Emma.”
The girl looked past them.
Emma stood in the doorway holding the torn rabbit.
“You came,” the girl whispered.
Emma nodded as though they had arranged the meeting.
“Mr. Snow said you were sad.”
Rachel looked down at her daughter. “You knew she was here?”
Emma shook her head. “I heard her singing.”
The girl lowered the knife.
Her name was Sophie Bell.
According to her, Madison had brought her to Westwood Hall four months earlier. She had been moved between hidden rooms, questioned about names she did not understand, and forced to memorize messages. Sometimes men came through the black door. Sometimes Madison brought food. Daniel had visited twice.
“He said he was trying to get us out,” Sophie explained.
“Us?” Adrian asked.
Sophie looked toward the dark tunnel behind her.
“There were others.”
Police entered the chamber and searched the connecting passage. It led beneath the old nursery wing to a locked steel hatch. Beyond it, they found three small rooms.
Empty.
Each room contained a mattress, a water bottle, and a wall covered with tally marks.
Rachel knelt before Sophie. “When did you last see Daniel?”
“Yesterday.”
Everyone went still.
“Here?” Owen asked.
Sophie nodded.
“He came through the lower tunnel. He told me the party was tonight and I had to wait for Emma.”
Rachel gripped the girl’s hands. “Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He said if the blue lady ran, the house would wake up.”
Adrian remembered the future photograph and the automated mirror.
“What does that mean?”
Sophie handed him the bound index cards.
Each card contained a time and an event.
12:39 - Envelope under library door.
12:40 - Camera revealed.
1:05 - Black door opened.
Every event had occurred exactly as written.
The next card read:
1:20 - Margaret drinks water.
Adrian looked at his watch.
1:17.
Margaret stood near the entrance, pale and tired. A police medic approached her with a bottle.
“Mrs. Westwood, you should hydrate.”
Adrian knocked it from his hand.
The bottle struck the floor and rolled beneath the table.
The medic stared at him. “What are you doing?”
Owen seized the man and searched him.
No weapon. No unusual identification. The bottle was sealed.
At 1:20, Margaret suddenly collapsed.
Emma screamed.
Adrian caught his mother before she struck the floor. Her breathing was shallow. Her pulse fluttered.
The physician found a small puncture on Margaret’s wrist.
She had been injected earlier.
The card had not predicted poison in the water. It had predicted the moment a delayed drug would take effect.
Margaret was rushed to a secure medical suite. The physician administered an antidote after identifying a rare sedative. She survived, but remained unconscious.
Sophie watched from the corridor.
“The cards never lie,” she said.
“Who wrote them?” Adrian asked.
“The man with your face.”
Adrian crouched beside her. “What man?”
Sophie removed the final card in the bundle.
On it was a charcoal sketch of Adrian.
But the man in the drawing had a deep scar across his mouth.
“He says he is the first son,” Sophie whispered.
Adrian’s father had only one son.
Adrian.
At least according to every family record.
The next card contained no time.
May you like
Only a sentence.
WHEN MARGARET WAKES, SHE WILL LIE.
