Chapter 15 - The Woman in the Care Facility
The music came from a small speaker hidden beneath the basement stairs. Ortiz found it in less than a minute.The recording ended with one sentence.“Avery, come to the place where the river bends.”“It is a lure,” Maya said.“It is my mother,” Avery replied.“Both can be true.”Mercer was taken into custody. Under questioning, he admitted delivering messages for Hal but denied knowing where Claire was.“He paid me to scare people,” Mercer said. “I never touched the boy.”“Who took the photograph at the school?” Ortiz asked.“Hal’s assistant.”“Name?”“Mara Bell.”The assistant had already vanished.The court order reached Vermont by dawn. Investigators entered the care facility listed in the financial records and found Eleanor March in a locked room.She was alive.She was also heavily sedated.Avery flew there with Ortiz and Maya. Sarah stayed behind with Leo, who had begun asking why police officers kept standing near the windows.Mark did not go. Ortiz placed him under supervision while prosecutors reviewed his statement.At noon, Avery called from Vermont.“It’s her,” she said.Sarah closed her eyes. “Is she awake?”“Sometimes. She remembers me.”“Does she remember Hal?”“She remembers everything.”Claire had been declared incompetent by a court petition filed by Peter Kessler. Kessler had used the trust funds to pay the facility, then arranged for Claire’s records to remain sealed.“Why keep her alive?” Sarah asked.“Because she knew where the original ledger was,” Avery said.“Do you know?”“She says it is not a book.”Sarah looked toward Mark, who sat on the far side of Priya’s living room.“What does she mean?”“She says the ledger is a song.”Mark stood. “The music box.”“Maybe,” Avery said. “She wants to speak to you.”Sarah did not like the idea. “Put her on.”There was a rustle, then a woman’s breath.“Mark?”His face changed.“Claire,” he whispered.“You were always afraid of the dark,” she said.“I was a child.”“You were a child when Hal made you carry me.”Mark closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”“Sorry is a door. You still have to open it.”Sarah heard the phrase and understood where Mark had learned his habit of secrecy.“Claire,” she said, “where is the ledger?”“Beneath the first house.”“The Whitaker house?”“The house with the blue curtains.”“We found a passage.”“The passage is only the lock.”“What is the key?”Claire breathed slowly. “The necklace.”Sarah looked at the sapphire resting inside a police evidence bag.“We found the film.”“The film shows the rooms. The stone shows the truth.”“How?”“Turn it toward the light.”Sarah held the necklace near the window. A faint blue reflection appeared on the ceiling. It formed a pattern of three dots and a curved line.Mark stared. “A map.”“No,” Claire said. “A name.”The reflection sharpened when Sarah turned the stone. Letters appeared in reverse.EDWARD.Claire continued. “Your grandfather recorded the trust in his own handwriting. Hal destroyed the paper copy. He could not destroy the stone.”“Where is the record?” Sarah asked.“Inside the room without windows.”“We found that room at River House.”“Not that room.”Sarah looked at the floor beneath Priya’s apartment.“Under the Whitaker house,” Claire said. “The seventh room.”The call ended when a nurse entered.Sarah turned to Mark. “You knew there was a seventh room.”“I knew the plans had one.”“You never searched?”“The entrance was sealed.”“You had the necklace.”“I did not know how to read it.”Sarah gave the evidence bag to Ortiz when the detective arrived.“We search the house with a warrant,” Ortiz said. “No one goes alone.”Leo looked up from his drawing. “Can I come?”Sarah knelt beside him. “Not this time.”“But I know the knock.”“You know enough to stay safe.”That night, Sarah dreamed of a blue room beneath the floor and woke to the sound of three soft knocks.In the hallway, a shadow moved past Leo’s bedroom door.
