Chapter 2 - The Wall Holds Another Secret
Grace kept Sophie pressed against her chest and aimed the phone flashlight deeper into the opening.
At first she saw only old wooden beams and dust.
Then the light caught metal.
A small black lockbox sat farther inside the wall, beside a folded pink blanket and three baby bottles.
Grace’s stomach tightened.
This was not a place Sophie had crawled into by accident.
Someone had prepared it.
Victoria stepped forward.
“Give her to me.”
Grace backed away.
“No.”
“I am her mother.”
“Then explain why your baby was locked behind a painting.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You work here. You don’t interrogate me.”
Sophie began crying again.
Grace felt the child clutch the collar of her uniform.
Then she noticed something else inside the compartment.
A tiny camera.
Its lens pointed directly toward the place where Sophie had been sitting.
Grace stared at Victoria.
“You were recording her?”
Victoria lunged for Grace’s phone.
Grace twisted away.
The phone kept recording.
“Don’t touch me.”
Footsteps sounded downstairs.
Victoria’s fear became visible.
“Put the painting back before he sees it.”
“Before who sees it?”
Victoria did not answer.
Then a man’s voice echoed from the staircase.
“Victoria?”
Daniel Whitmore had returned early.
The billionaire owner of the mansion appeared at the end of the hallway carrying a leather briefcase.
He saw Grace holding his ten-month-old daughter.
He saw the painting leaning against the wall.
Then he saw the opening.
His face emptied.
“What happened?”
Victoria answered immediately.
“Grace broke into the wall.”
Grace looked at him.
“Your daughter was inside it.”
Daniel stopped.
“What?”
Grace showed him the video she had started seconds earlier.
Sophie’s hand.
The crying.
The hidden compartment.
The bottles.
The camera.
Daniel slowly turned toward his wife.
“Why was Sophie in there?”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“I can explain.”
Grace almost laughed at the familiar cowardice of the sentence.
Daniel stepped toward the wall and reached for the black lockbox.
Victoria screamed.
“DON’T OPEN THAT!”
Everyone froze.
Daniel looked at her.
Then he pulled the box into the hallway.
It required a four-digit code.
Grace noticed a faded hospital bracelet tied around the handle.
The name printed on it was not Sophie Whitmore.
It read:
EMILY ROSE CARTER.
Daniel stared at the bracelet.
Grace looked at him.
“Who is Emily?”
Daniel whispered:
“My first daughter.”
Grace’s breath caught.
She knew Daniel had only one child.
At least, that was what everyone in the mansion had been told.
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Then Daniel said something even stranger.
“Emily died eleven years ago.”
