Chapter 2 - THE LOCKED ROOMJonathan ordered everyone downstairs except Annie.
That decision alone shocked Margaret.
“Mr. Ashford,” she whispered, “are you sure?”
“No.”
His answer was immediate.
“But stay downstairs.”
Victoria continued crying behind the locked door.
Annie stood beside Jonathan in the corridor.
“What’s in there?”
“My wife’s things.”
“Victoria’s mother?”
Jonathan nodded.
“Elena.”
Annie touched the necklace again.
“My mother never mentioned anyone named Elena Ashford.”
Jonathan’s gaze remained fixed on the door.
“Your mother knew her better than almost anyone.”
Annie’s anger rose.
“Then why did you tell me she never existed in your life?”
“I didn’t.”
“You let me grow up believing my mother spent her entire life cleaning offices and working at a nursing home.”
“That may have been what Ruth wanted.”
“Ruth has been dead for eleven years. You don’t get to use her silence to protect yourself.”
Jonathan winced.
Annie noticed.
Good.
“Open the door.”
“I don’t have the key.”
“Your mansion has fifty security cameras, biometric locks, and a panic room. Don’t tell me you can’t open one bedroom.”
“It isn’t my lock.”
Victoria had installed it when she turned eighteen.
Jonathan had never forced his way inside.
Annie knocked.
“Victoria?”
Silence.
Then—
“Go away.”
“No.”
Jonathan glanced at her.
Annie knocked again.
“You can fire me after you open this door.”
“I already fired you.”
“Then I’m technically trespassing. Better let me in before things get worse.”
A strange sound came through the door.
Not quite laughter.
Not quite crying.
Annie waited.
Finally, the lock clicked.
Victoria stood on the other side.
Her makeup was streaked.
She looked younger without the rage.
Much younger.
The room behind her was untouched by modern life.
Floral wallpaper.
An antique vanity.
Books.
Photographs.
A pale blue dress hanging behind glass.
It was a memorial.
Victoria looked at Annie’s necklace.
“Come in.”
Jonathan stepped forward.
“No.”
Victoria blocked him.
“Not you.”
His face tightened.
“Victoria—”
“You had thirty years.”
She slammed the door in his face.
Annie found herself alone with the woman who had thrown glass at her ten minutes earlier.
Victoria crossed the room and opened a drawer.
Inside were dozens of envelopes.
Every one was addressed to Victoria.
Every one carried the same handwriting.
“I started getting these when I was eleven.”
Annie picked one up.
The return name read:
RUTH CARTER.
Her heart stopped.
“My mother wrote these?”
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“She ruined my life with them.”
Annie unfolded the first letter.
Victoria,
Your mother trusted the wrong people. Servants hear things. Servants take things. Your family will never be safe if you let outsiders get too close.
Annie frowned.
“That doesn’t sound like my mother.”
“You were her daughter. Maybe she was different with you.”
“No.”
Annie read another.
Never trust household staff. Your mother learned too late.
Another.
If you want to protect your father, watch the people he brings into the house.
Another.
Weakness invites betrayal.
Annie’s stomach turned.
“How many?”
“One every birthday until I turned twenty-one.”
“Where were they mailed from?”
“Different places.”
“Did your father know?”
“He said Ruth disappeared after my mother died.”
Annie looked toward the door.
Jonathan had said her mother worked here.
He had not said she disappeared.
“What happened to Elena?”
Victoria’s expression closed.
“She fell from the west balcony.”
Annie lowered the letter.
“How?”
“Nobody knows.”
“You were here?”
Victoria looked toward the window.
“I was nine.”
Annie waited.
Victoria walked toward a photograph.
Elena Ashford stood in a garden, elegant and smiling, one arm around a young Victoria.
Beside them stood another woman.
Annie’s breath caught.
Ruth Carter.
Her mother.
Younger.
Smiling.
Wearing the exact silver pendant now hanging from Annie’s neck.
Annie reached for the dresser.
“My God.”
“You still think she never worked here?”
“I think somebody lied to both of us.”
Victoria’s eyes hardened.
“My mother died. Your mother disappeared. Then letters started arriving telling me never to trust another employee.”
“And you decided terrorizing them was safer?”
Victoria looked away.
That was answer enough.
Annie didn’t excuse it.
Trauma explained behavior.
It did not absolve cruelty.
“You poured soup on a seventy-year-old woman today.”
Victoria’s voice sharpened.
“You think I don’t know what I do?”
“I don’t know what you know.”
“I know they all leave.”
Annie stared at her.
Victoria swallowed.
“Every maid. Every nanny. Every assistant. They all leave eventually.”
“Maybe because you throw things at them.”
“That’s the point.”
Annie paused.
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“If I make them leave first, they can’t betray me later.”
There it was.
Not arrogance.
A survival strategy built by a frightened nine-year-old and carried into adulthood.
Ugly.
Cruel.
But suddenly understandable.
“Who told you Ruth betrayed your mother?”
Victoria whispered, “My aunt.”
“Name.”
“Daphne Ashford.”
Annie knew the name.
Jonathan’s younger sister.
Philanthropist.
Board member of Ashford Global.
A woman whose face appeared regularly in business magazines.
“What did she say?”
“That Ruth stole jewelry the night my mother died.”
Annie almost laughed.
“My mother returned grocery money when a cashier gave her an extra twenty.”
“She said Ruth was confronted by my mother. They argued. Ruth ran away afterward.”
“My mother didn’t run anywhere.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I was ten years old, living with her in Hartford.”
Victoria went silent.
“What?”
“She came home every night.”
“No.”
“She took me to school every morning. She worked two jobs.”
Victoria’s face paled.
“After my mother died?”
“What year?”
“2004.”
Annie nodded slowly.
“My mother was raising me in Hartford in 2004.”
Victoria gripped the dresser.
“Then why did everyone tell me she disappeared?”
“That,” Annie said, “is what we’re going to find out.”
Victoria stared.
“We?”
“You may have fired me.”
“I did.”
“But somebody dragged my dead mother into whatever happened in this house. I’m not leaving until I know why.”
A knock sounded.
“Victoria.”
Daphne’s voice.
Victoria stiffened instantly.
Annie noticed.
Daphne entered without waiting.
She was sixty, immaculate, composed, wearing a cream suit that probably cost more than Annie’s car.
Then she saw Annie.
Then the necklace.
For the briefest instant, genuine panic flashed across her face.
Annie caught it.
Daphne recovered quickly.
“Who is this?”
“Annie Carter,” Victoria said.
Daphne’s eyes narrowed.
“Carter?”
“My mother was Ruth.”
Silence.
Daphne looked at the necklace again.
“Well.”
Just one word.
But Annie heard the fear inside it.
Daphne smiled politely.
“What an extraordinary coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences this expensive.”
Daphne’s smile disappeared.
Victoria picked up one of the letters.
“Did Ruth really write these?”
Daphne didn’t hesitate.
“Of course.”
Annie stepped closer.
“Then perhaps you can explain something.”
“What?”
“My mother broke her right wrist when she was sixteen.”
Daphne stared.
“She couldn’t bend it properly afterward. Her handwriting leaned backward because of it.”
Annie held up the letter.
“This handwriting leans forward.”
Victoria looked from the paper to Daphne.
Daphne’s face remained calm.
Barely.
Annie continued.
“And my mother never called household workers ‘servants.’ Not once. She hated that word.”
Daphne’s lips tightened.
“You cannot possibly remember every word your mother—”
“I remember enough.”
Victoria whispered, “Aunt Daphne?”
Daphne turned to her.
“Sweetheart, this woman has been inside your home less than an hour. Do not let her manipulate you.”
Victoria flinched.
The phrase clearly had power.
Annie saw it.
Daphne had been doing this for years.
Perhaps decades.
“You should leave,” Daphne told Annie.
“Not happening.”
“I am a trustee of this estate.”
“And I’m a woman whose dead mother has apparently been forging letters from beyond the grave.”
Daphne took one step toward her.
“Be careful.”
Annie smiled without warmth.
“Was that advice?”
“No.”
Daphne lowered her voice.
“It was a warning.”
Then she walked out.
Victoria sank onto the bed.
For the first time, she looked frightened of someone other than Annie.
“My aunt has never spoken like that.”
“She has now.”
Annie picked up the photograph.
Something was written along the bottom.
Three names.
ELENA, RUTH, AND CLAIRE.
“Who’s Claire?”
Victoria frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Annie turned the photograph over.
A message had been written on the back.
If anything happens to me, Ruth knows where the second key is.
Victoria read it.
Their eyes met.
“What key?”
Annie looked toward the silver pendant.
Then she noticed a tiny seam running around its edge.
Her pulse quickened.
She pressed her thumbnail against it.
The pendant opened.
Inside was not a photograph.
It was a tiny brass key.
Victoria stopped breathing.
And downstairs, somewhere deep inside Ashford House, a door slammed.
May you like
A moment later, the fire alarm began screaming.
Someone was destroying evidence.
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