Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead)
The seamstress had called herself Kate Miller.
Daniel remembered her because Emma liked her.
While Vanessa stood on a platform in the drawing room complaining about the hem of her gown, Kate had knelt beside Emma and shown her how to fold a scrap of satin into a tiny rose.
At the time, Daniel had thought nothing of it.
Now he wondered whether Katherine Vale had entered Mercer House specifically to reach Emma.
Martin searched the temporary staffing agency Vanessa had used.
No Kate Miller existed.
The phone number on the invoice had been disconnected.
The address belonged to a vacant storefront in Providence.
“She wanted to be seen,” Daniel said.
Martin looked up.
“What?”
“If Katherine was hiding, she wouldn’t walk into my house unless she wanted one of us to notice her.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Maybe I wasn’t supposed to.”
Daniel thought about Emma.
He called Eleanor.
Emma answered.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, sweetheart. I need to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
“Do you remember the lady who helped with Vanessa’s dress? The one who made you the little cloth flower?”
A pause.
“Miss Kate?”
“Yes. Did she say anything to you?”
Another pause.
“Emma?”
“She asked if Mommy still talked to me.”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“What did you say?”
“I said sometimes in my dreams.”
“What did she say then?”
“She said dreams can remember things grown-ups forget.”
Martin wrote the sentence down.
“Anything else?”
Emma hesitated.
“She gave me something.”
Daniel stood.
“What?”
“A card.”
“Where is it?”
“In my room.”
At Mercer House.
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Do you remember what was on the card?”
“A lighthouse.”
Martin looked at him sharply.
“Lighthouse?”
Daniel nodded.
Rachel loved lighthouses.
She and Daniel had spent their honeymoon driving the Maine coast.
One particular lighthouse mattered to them.
West Quoddy Head.
Rachel once joked that if their marriage survived Daniel’s inability to follow road signs, they should renew their vows there.
Daniel asked Emma, “Was there writing on it?”
“Numbers.”
“What numbers?”
“I don’t remember.”
Daniel looked at Martin.
“We’re going back to the house.”
Martin shook his head immediately.
“Vanessa may have people watching it.”
“Then they can watch.”
Two hours later Daniel entered Mercer House with Martin and four private security officers.
Police had already been there after Celeste reported Emma’s confinement.
But Daniel had deliberately withheld the USB drive and Rachel’s files.
He did not yet know whom to trust.
The mansion felt different.
Not like home.
Like evidence.
The portrait of Frederick Mercer rested against the hallway wall.
The secret recess stood open.
A crime-scene technician had dusted its frame for prints.
Daniel stopped.
“Where’s the metal box?”
One of the officers checked.
“Police logged no box.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Vanessa had taken it.
Upstairs, Emma’s bedroom was untouched.
Pink curtains.
Books.
A stuffed rabbit.
A framed photograph of Rachel on the nightstand.
Daniel opened drawers until he found a postcard beneath a stack of coloring books.
West Quoddy Head Lighthouse.
On the back were six numbers.
9 14 3 8 21 7
Below them was a sentence.
THE HOUSE REMEMBERS BEFORE THE FAMILY DOES.
Martin read it.
“Cipher?”
“Maybe.”
Daniel turned the card over again.
Something had been written lightly beneath the printed lighthouse name.
He angled it toward the window.
Beneath the surface was an indentation.
R.M. STUDY.
“Rachel Mercer’s study,” Martin said.
Daniel shook his head.
“Rachel didn’t have a study.”
Then he remembered.
His father’s old office had originally belonged to Daniel’s grandmother, Ruth Mercer.
R.M.
They went downstairs.
Charles Mercer’s former study had remained locked since his death.
Daniel rarely entered it.
The room smelled of leather and old paper.
Bookshelves covered three walls.
A massive desk stood beneath a portrait of Ruth Mercer.
Daniel studied the postcard.
The house remembers before the family does.
He looked at the bookshelves.
Nine.
Fourteen.
Three.
Eight.
Twenty-one.
Seven.
“Could be shelf coordinates.”
They tried.
Nothing.
Then Martin noticed brass numbers on the lower edges of the built-in bookcases.
Each cabinet section was numbered.
They followed the sequence.
Cabinet nine.
Shelf fourteen was impossible.
But drawer fourteen existed in the desk.
Inside drawer fourteen were small numbered compartments.
Three.
Compartment three contained a key.
The remaining numbers led them to bookcase eight, shelf twenty-one, book seven.
Daniel pulled out an old leather volume.
A click sounded behind the shelf.
The entire center bookcase shifted outward.
Martin stared.
“You people really do live in a gothic novel.”
Daniel did not smile.
Behind the bookcase was a narrow passage leading downward.
Fresh footprints marked the dust.
Someone had been there recently.
They descended.
At the bottom was a steel door.
The key fit.
Inside was a windowless room.
A desk.
A filing cabinet.
Two computer monitors.
A disconnected server rack.
And a wall covered with photographs.
Daniel stepped inside.
His stomach dropped.
There were pictures of Rachel.
Thomas.
Vanessa.
Judge Colby.
Detective Pike.
His father.
And dozens of people he had never seen.
In the center was a photograph of Daniel himself.
A red circle had been drawn around his face.
Below it, someone had written:
SUCCESSOR ACCESS PENDING.
Martin whispered, “Daniel.”
He was pointing toward another photograph.
Emma.
Taken outside her school three months earlier.
Below her image were two words.
LEVERAGE OPTION.
Daniel stared at the photograph until his vision blurred.
Then a phone rang.
Not Daniel’s.
Not Martin’s.
An old landline sitting on the hidden-room desk.
One ring.
Two.
Three.
Daniel slowly lifted the receiver.
A woman’s voice spoke.
“You took longer than Rachel.”
Daniel gripped the phone.
“Katherine?”
A pause.
Then:
May you like
“If you want Emma to survive what comes next, stop looking for Vanessa.”
The line went dead.
