Chapter 2 - The Locked Study
Police separated everyone before Eleanor could say another word.
Claire sat beneath a blanket while a paramedic checked her pulse and oxygen level.
Her ribs hurt from striking the balcony wall, but there appeared to be no serious injury.
Ethan stayed beside her.
Eleanor sat across the room with an attorney already on speakerphone.
Even after what had happened, she carried herself like the owner of everything around her.
Detective Marcus Hale arrived twenty minutes later.
He listened to Claire.
Then Rosa.
Then three guests who had witnessed the push.
Eleanor continued insisting it had been an accident.
Hale was unconvinced.
When two officers escorted Eleanor toward the front entrance, she stopped beside Ethan.
“You have no idea what she brought into this house.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
“My wife almost died.”
“And you think that was the danger?”
Eleanor looked at Claire.
“The danger started the moment she opened that study.”
Ethan took one step toward his mother.
“Enough.”
Eleanor smiled sadly.
“You sound exactly like your father.”
Then she was gone.
The manor became unbearably quiet.
Ethan turned to Claire.
“What did you find?”
Claire opened her palm.
The brass key had the initials R.B. engraved into it.
“I found this three days ago.”
“Where?”
“In a box my mother left me.”
Ethan stared at her.
Claire’s mother, Rebecca, had died eight months earlier after a short illness.
Ethan had met her only twice.
Rebecca had always refused invitations to Blackwood Manor.
Claire had never understood why.
Until now.
“Before Mom died, she gave me a letter.”
Claire swallowed.
“She told me not to open it unless I was ever invited to live here.”
Ethan looked toward the dark hallway leading to the west wing.
“What did the letter say?”
Claire removed a folded piece of paper from her handbag.
Most of the page contained only one sentence.
IF YOU EVER ENTER BLACKWOOD MANOR, FIND RICHARD BLACKWOOD’S STUDY BEFORE ELEANOR KNOWS WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
Ethan read it twice.
His father’s name had been Richard Blackwood.
Richard had supposedly died in a boating accident fifteen years earlier.
“What does your mother have to do with my father?”
Claire whispered.
“I don’t know.”
They walked together toward the sealed west wing.
Dust covered the corridor.
Ethan stopped in front of the study door.
The lock was already open.
Claire inserted the brass key into a hidden compartment beneath Richard’s desk.
A panel clicked.
Inside was a photograph.
Ethan picked it up.
His face drained of color.
The photograph showed Richard Blackwood standing beside Rebecca.
They were younger.
They were smiling.
And Rebecca was holding a newborn baby.
Written across the back were five words.
OUR DAUGHTER CLAIRE.
Ethan looked at his wife.
Then at the photograph.
Then back at Claire.
Neither of them spoke.
May you like
Because if the words were true, Claire had not married into the Blackwood family.
She had been born into it.
