Chapter 2 - Daniel's Missing Sister
Emily went downstairs alone.
The mansion was silent.
She crossed the dark foyer and entered the service corridor.
The air smelled faintly of old wood and detergent.
At the end of the hall sat the renovated laundry room.
Two modern machines.
Storage cabinets.
White countertops.
Nothing unusual.
Beside it was another doorway.
Narrow.
Dark wood.
Three locks.
Exactly as Noah described.
Emily tried the handle.
Locked.
Then she heard it.
A dull metallic rotation from behind the door.
Whump.
Pause.
Whump.
Like an empty drum turning.
Emily stepped back.
"Hello?"
The sound stopped.
She waited.
Nothing.
The next morning she told Margaret.
Margaret barely reacted.
"Old plumbing."
"It sounded like a machine."
"There are pipes behind that wall."
"Why is the room locked?"
"We discussed this."
"No. You refused to discuss it."
Margaret poured coffee.
"Emily, you are a guest in this house."
Emily stared at her.
"I'm your son's wife."
"That doesn't change ownership."
There it was.
The truth beneath years of polite tension.
Margaret had never accepted Emily as permanent.
To her, wives came and went.
The Carter family remained.
Emily smiled.
"Then perhaps Daniel, as your son and co-owner, can explain it."
Margaret's hand tightened around the coffee pot.
"Daniel doesn't need to be bothered."
That response told Emily the room was connected to him.
Later that day, she searched old family albums.
Margaret kept dozens in the library.
Daniel as a baby.
Daniel learning to walk.
Daniel at school.
Daniel standing beside his father, Richard Carter.
Then Emily found a photograph she had never seen.
Daniel was approximately eight years old.
Beside him stood a little girl with dark hair and a yellow sweater.
She looked four.
On the back:
Daniel and Claire, October 1999.
Emily turned the page.
No Claire.
Next page.
No Claire.
Every photograph afterward showed Daniel alone.
She heard Mrs. Lewis entering with fresh flowers.
Emily held up the picture.
"Who is Claire?"
The vase slipped slightly in the housekeeper's hands.
Emily noticed.
"Mrs. Lewis."
The woman placed the flowers down.
"You should ask your husband."
"I am asking you."
Mrs. Lewis stared at the photograph.
"Claire was his sister."
Emily's chest tightened.
"Daniel never told me he had a sister."
"No."
"What happened to her?"
Mrs. Lewis sat slowly.
"She disappeared."
Emily felt cold.
"When?"
"November 1999."
"From where?"
The housekeeper looked toward the library door.
"From this house."
Emily lowered the photograph.
"Was she kidnapped?"
"No one knew."
"Police?"
"Of course."
"Did they find anything?"
"No."
"How does a four-year-old disappear from a gated mansion?"
Mrs. Lewis closed her eyes.
"It destroyed the family."
"Where was Margaret?"
"Here."
"Daniel?"
"Here."
"Richard?"
"Traveling."
Emily thought of the locked laundry corridor.
"Was Claire last seen near that room?"
Mrs. Lewis stood quickly.
"I've already said too much."
"Was she?"
"I don't know."
"You do."
"Mrs. Carter made everyone promise."
"Promise what?"
"Not to talk about the old laundry room."
Emily's stomach tightened.
"Why?"
Mrs. Lewis whispered, "Because Daniel remembered something."
"What?"
The housekeeper looked terrified.
"He said he heard his mother tell Claire not to cry."
Emily's skin prickled.
"What exactly did he hear?"
Mrs. Lewis shook her head.
"I can't."
"Mrs. Lewis."
The older woman looked toward the doorway.
Then whispered:
"He said Margaret told Claire nobody would hear her once the machine started."
Emily stared at her.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
May you like
Margaret stood in the library entrance.
Neither woman knew how long she had been listening.
