Chapter 12 - The Room with No Windows
Leo had not lost the boot. Sarah had watched him put both boots beside the apartment door that morning.The threat was no longer hidden behind property records or old photographs. It had found the shape of her child.She called Mrs. Alvarez, then moved Leo to Priya’s apartment with a uniformed officer stationed outside. Detective Ortiz arranged a protective detail but warned that it could not remain indefinitely.“You need to give us something actionable,” Ortiz said.“We have a threat and a ledger.”“We need a person attached to the threat.”“Hal Whitaker.”“We need proof.”Mark offered it.“Hal keeps duplicate records at River House,” he said. “The original property books are stored in a room without windows.”Ortiz looked at him. “How do you know?”“I was there last month.”Sarah crossed her arms. “You said you had never seen the ledger.”“I saw the room. Not the ledger.”“You keep narrowing your lies.”He looked tired rather than defensive. “I deserve that.”“You deserve more than that.”Mark nodded. “Probably.”They met with attorney Maya Chen, a former prosecutor recommended by Jonah. Maya reviewed the documents and spoke with blunt precision.“The ledger is potentially valuable but vulnerable,” she said. “The chain of custody is poor. The threat texts are better. The financial records will be strongest if we can connect them to Hal.”“Can we search River House?” Sarah asked.“Not lawfully without a warrant.”“Then get one.”“I need probable cause.”Mark placed a flash drive on the table. “These are internal transfer reports from Whitaker Development.”Maya plugged it into her laptop. Rows of payments appeared.“You stole these?” she asked.“I copied them.”“From a system you had authorization to access?”“Yes.”“Then you may have violated company policy, but not necessarily criminal law.”Sarah watched numbers fill the screen. Payments moved from the nurses’ scholarship fund to shell companies, then to a medical transportation company.The transportation company had one client: River House.“What is it paying for?” Priya asked.Maya enlarged the entries. “Residential care.”Sarah stared. “For Claire.”“Possibly,” Maya said.Mark pointed to a later payment. “There. The account was closed last year.”“Who received the final transfer?”Maya read the name. “Eleanor March.”Avery gripped the edge of the table. “That is my mother’s hospital name.”“The transfer went to a care facility in Vermont,” Maya said.“She is there,” Avery whispered.“Or someone is using her name.”Sarah thought of the video. The woman had known the house. She had known the lock.“We need a warrant for the care facility records too,” Maya said.Ortiz obtained an emergency order that afternoon. The facility confirmed that Eleanor March had been a resident for eight years under a court-appointed guardian.The guardian was Peter Kessler.Sarah felt the room tilt.“Hal’s attorney,” she said.“Former attorney,” Maya corrected. “He retired from practice last year.”“Where is he now?”“He lives near River House.”The answer came too quickly.That evening, Sarah returned to her own bedroom with a police technician. The passage had been sealed pending a search, but the technician permitted her to stand at the entrance.The music box sat on the dresser.Sarah played the tune.Four notes. Three descending.She knocked twice, paused, then once.From inside the wall came a click.The fourth niche opened farther, revealing a narrow metal drawer.Inside were three objects: a key marked seven, a photograph of Claire and Sarah’s grandmother, and a child’s drawing.The drawing showed a blue house, a woman with yellow hair, and a little boy beneath a staircase.In childish letters, someone had written: Leo knows where the door is.Sarah’s blood went cold.“That was not drawn by Leo,” she said.The technician photographed it.At the bottom of the drawer was a strip of paper.The seventh room is not at the river. It is under the house.Sarah looked at the dark passage.Somewhere beneath her bedroom was a room without windows.And someone had known Leo would become part of the search.
