Chapter 2 - The Woman in White.
Adrian stared at the black bag while the dead woman's lullaby played again.
Bella pushed herself deeper beneath his jacket.
"Don't open it here," she whispered.
Eleanor's expression remained perfectly composed.
"For once, the child is giving sensible advice."
Adrian found a seam in the tape around Bella's wrists and tore it apart with his house key.
Red bands circled her skin.
He photographed them before carrying her toward the mansion.
Eleanor stepped into his path.
"That bag contains stolen property."
"Then call the police," Adrian said.
"I intend to."
He brushed past her and locked himself with Bella inside the sunroom.
The bright room smelled of lemon polish and roses.
Bella sat on a sofa while Adrian poured water over a cloth and pressed it gently to her wrists.
"Tell me who used the tape."
Her lips moved, but no sound came.
Adrian lowered his voice.
"You cannot get in trouble for telling me the truth."
Bella looked at the glass doors behind him.
Eleanor stood outside, motionless in white.
"Grandma said truth is only safe when powerful people agree with it," Bella murmured.
Adrian felt something cold open inside his chest.
He closed the curtains.
Together they examined the bag.
Inside lay a charred blue dress, a silver hairbrush, three cassette tapes, and an old cell phone with a cracked screen.
Adrian recognized every object.
They had belonged to Sophie, Bella's mother.
Sophie had died in a car fire six years earlier.
The police had returned only her wedding ring and a box of ash.
"Where did you find these?" Adrian asked.
"In the greenhouse wall."
"Who showed you?"
"Mom did."
Adrian stopped breathing.
Bella touched the cracked phone.
"She talks to me after midnight."
The phone required a four-digit passcode.
Bella entered the date of Sophie's supposed death.
The screen opened to one video recorded forty-eight hours earlier.
Sophie appeared thinner than Adrian remembered, with dark circles beneath eyes that still held the same fierce blue light.
A medical bracelet circled her wrist.
She looked directly into the camera.
"Adrian, if you are hearing this, Bella found what I hid."
Sophie glanced toward someone beyond the frame.
"Your mother knows I survived."
Adrian replayed the final seconds and noticed a reflection in the metal cabinet behind Sophie.
A person in a white coat stood outside the room, holding a clipboard stamped with the Mercer Foundation crest.
The crest had been designed by Eleanor herself.
Bella pointed to a bruise near Sophie's temple.
"She looked better the first time she called me."
Adrian asked how many calls there had been.
Bella counted five on her fingers.
Each happened after midnight, and each ended when the hallway camera above Bella's door blinked red.
Sophie had told her to search behind one loose brick in the greenhouse.
Bella found the bag that morning, but Miles saw her carrying it.
"Grandma said Mom was a bad dream," Bella said.
"Then she said bad dreams have to be tied down before they spread."
Adrian wanted to storm through the curtain and confront Eleanor.
Instead, he copied the video to his private email and hid the phone inside his jacket lining.
Sophie had survived six years because someone had planned carefully.
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He would not waste that survival on rage.
The video ended as the sunroom door handle slowly turned.
