Chapter 6 - The Woman in Room 1701.
Evan switched on his phone flashlight.
The beam moved across the crib, the desk, and the heavy curtains.
A hidden panel beside the wardrobe opened.
A thin woman stepped out with one hand raised against the light.
Her silver-streaked hair framed a face marked by pale scars along the jaw.
Rowan knew her eyes immediately.
They were the same green eyes she saw in the mirror every morning.
“Elise?” Evan whispered.
The woman looked only at Rowan.
“I wanted my first words to you to be kinder.”
Rowan crossed the room and slapped her.
The sound was small, but it carried twenty-four years of foster homes, locked bedrooms, and birthdays without a name.
Elise did not defend herself.
“You left me.”
“I hid you.”
“There is no difference to a child.”
Rowan remembered the state worker who had told her Elise was probably living somewhere warm with a better family.
She remembered waiting beside foster-home windows whenever a blonde woman crossed the street.
Every Christmas, an unsigned package had arrived with one small brass sun inside.
Rowan had believed the gifts were cruel jokes from Vivian.
Elise touched the necklace of tiny brass suns beneath her blouse.
“I sent one each year so you would know I was counting.”
“You should have sent yourself.”
Elise flinched, because there was no answer that could return those years.
Daniel tested the suite handle from the hallway.
Elise moved quickly.
She tore Evan's silver name tag from his shirt and broke it beneath her heel.
A green transmitter blinked inside.
“That is who has been working for Vivian,” she said.
Evan stared at the broken badge.
“I didn't know.”
“Your father did.”
The lock groaned under Daniel's shoulder.
Elise pulled a framed painting away from the wall, revealing a narrow safe.
“Vivian threatened to kill you unless I signed the pension transfers.”
“Then Marcus drove my car off the Hawthorne Bridge.”
Rowan felt the room tilt.
“Marcus?”
“He worked for Vivian then.”
“He works for himself now.”
Elise removed a leather ledger and a sealed will from the safe.
“Thomas Wright pulled me from the river.”
Evan's eyes filled.
“My father saved you?”
“He lost everything because he refused to tell them where he sent my baby.”
Daniel slammed the door again.
The frame cracked.
Elise handed the ledger to Evan and the will to Rowan.
“Conrad built a passage for staff during the labor riots.”
She pushed the crib aside.
A brass ring lay beneath one wheel.
Rowan pulled it, and a section of floor rose on hidden hinges.
Before they descended, Elise took the steaming cup from the desk and drank.
Rowan grabbed her wrist.
“Who brought that?”
“Miriam Shaw.”
Miriam was the attorney named on the trust notice.
The door burst inward.
Daniel entered with a handgun aimed at Rowan.
Evan threw the wooden crib into him.
The shot shattered the ninth screen.
Rowan and Elise climbed into the passage while Evan fought Daniel in the dark.
Evan followed seconds later, pulling the hatch closed above them.
They hurried down a spiral stair hidden inside the wall.
Halfway down, Elise stumbled.
Her fingers clawed at her throat.
The sealed will fell from Rowan's hand.
Elise collapsed against the stone steps.
Foam gathered at the corner of her mouth.
The tea had been poisoned.
Above them, Daniel began opening the hatch.
Below them, Miriam Shaw called Rowan's name.
May you like
Page
THE WOMAN BENEATH THE CHANDELIERS
