Chapter 10 - The Room Beneath the Mansion
Claire went to the meeting.
She didn't go alone.
She secretly left her location with Elena.
The meeting point was beneath an abandoned office building.
A man waited.
Daniel.
Mike's brother.
He looked older.
Tired.
But the resemblance was undeniable.
Claire stared at him.
“You're alive.”
Daniel nodded.
“Barely.”
“Where is Mike?”
Daniel looked away.
“Still alive.”
Claire's eyes filled with tears.
“Why won't he come home?”
“Because he thinks you were betrayed.”
“By who?”
Daniel handed her a file.
Inside were photographs of Claire.
Claire at work.
Claire shopping.
Claire with Mia.
Claire meeting Harold.
And one photograph that made her blood run cold.
Claire standing beside a woman she had never seen before.
Daniel said:
“That woman has been watching you since before Mike died.”
Claire stared.
“Who is she?”
Daniel didn't answer.
Instead, he pointed to the final page.
It showed a blueprint.
The Mercer mansion.
A hidden room beneath the property.
Daniel explained that Harold had been using the mansion as a meeting point.
“There is a room under the west wing.”
“What is inside?”
“Records.”
“Of what?”
“People.”
Claire didn't understand.
Daniel continued.
“People who disappeared.”
Claire felt sick.
She asked him why Harold would keep records of people he wanted forgotten.
Daniel looked at her.
“Because they weren't forgotten.”
That night, Claire entered the mansion.
She found the hidden room.
Inside were dozens of files.
Elena.
Daniel.
Mike.
And Claire.
Her own file was thicker than all the others.
Claire opened it.
The first page contained a photograph of her from ten years earlier.
The date made no sense.
She was standing beside Mike.
But another man was there.
A man she had never met.
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The final page contained one sentence.
CLAIRE KNOWS MORE THAN SHE REMEMBERS.
