Chapter 3 - The Room Left BehindThe door swung inward with a soft, mournful squeak.
I slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind me, and clicked on the small penlight app on my phone. The beam cut through the thick, stagnant air, illuminating a space that looked as though it had been flash-frozen in time.
It wasn't a guest room. It was a shrine.
Or a prison.
Dust motes danced in the pale beam of my phone light. The room was dominated by a large mahogany four-poster bed, neatly made with a floral duvet. On the vanity table, silver-backed hairbrushes, empty perfume bottles, and jars of cold cream sat precisely where they had been left years ago.
But it was the walls that made my breath catch in my throat.
Framed photographs covered every square inch of the wallpaper. Hundreds of them.
At first glance, I thought they were pictures of Chloe, the missing ex-fiancée. But as I stepped closer, moving the light across the gallery of frames, a sickening realization washed over me.
They weren't pictures of Chloe.
They were pictures of me.
Every single frame displayed candid shots of my life before I met Ethan, and during our two-year courtship. There I was sitting at my desk in my old graphic design studio in Chicago, captured through a high-powered telephoto lens. There I was walking out of my apartment building holding a bag of groceries. There I was eating lunch alone at a café, laughing at my phone.
And in the center of the wall, larger than the rest, was a massive framed photograph of me sleeping in my childhood bedroom, taken through an uncurtained window at night.
My knees buckled. I had to reach out and grab the edge of the vanity table to keep from collapsing.
They had been watching me. Not just Ethan—both of them. For years. I hadn't met Ethan by chance at that architectural showcase downtown; I had been selected. Sourced. Groomed to fit a very specific, terrifying mold.
“The last one who stayed in that east wing... she didn't leave in a moving truck.”
The whispered warning echoed in my brain with deafening clarity. Chloe hadn't fled to Europe. Chloe had discovered this room. Chloe had found out what Margaret and Ethan were, and she had tried to run.
And what had they done to her?
"Looking for interior design inspiration, Claire?"
The voice came from the doorway, slicing through the heavy silence like a razor blade.
I spun around so fast I knocked a silver hairbrush off the vanity. It clattered loudly against the hardwood floor.
Ethan stood in the doorway. He wasn't wearing his sweater anymore; he was in shirtsleeves, his cuffs unbuttoned. His face was entirely devoid of warmth, replaced by a flat, dead-eyed calm that was infinitely more terrifying than any expression of rage.
"Ethan..." I choked out, backing away until my spine hit the edge of the bed. "What is this? What are these pictures? Who took these?"
Ethan stepped into the room, closing the heavy oak door behind him with a soft click that sounded like a vault sealing shut.
"We did, sweetheart," he said, his voice entirely conversational. "Mom and I. We knew what we wanted in a wife for me. Someone compliant. Someone with a clean background. Someone who wouldn't make too much noise when things... well, when things got complicated."
"You're insane," I whispered, my hands trembling as I searched frantically behind me for something—anything—to use as a weapon. "You're both out of your minds. I’m calling the police. Right now."
I pulled my phone out of my pocket and tapped the screen.
No Service.
I stared at the status bar. The little antenna icon had a small "X" over it. A signal jammer. They had installed a portable signal blocker in the east wing.
Ethan chuckled softly—a low, lifeless sound. "Clairvoyant little Claire. Did you really think we didn't plan for every contingency? You think you're the first one who tried to look behind the curtain?"
"Where is Chloe?" I demanded, adrenaline surging through my veins, pushing past the terror. "What did you do to her?"
Ethan’s smile didn't reach his eyes. "Chloe was... difficult. She had an artistic temperament. She didn't understand family loyalty. One night, she got hysterical, tried to pack her bags, and ran down the stairs in the dark. She tripped. A terrible, tragic accident on the marble foyer steps. Mother was so distraught. We had to cremate her immediately, of course. For sanitary reasons."
The blood rushed in my ears. A roaring, deafening sound that drowned out the wind outside.
They murdered her.
And they were planning to do the exact same thing to me.
"You're monsters," I whispered, tears spilling over my lashes, hot and furious. "You're absolute monsters."
Ethan sighed, stepping closer, closing the distance between us with terrifying speed. Before I could dart to the left, his hand shot out, catching me by the wrist with a grip like a hydraulic vice.
"We're a family, Claire," he corrected smoothly, his face inches from mine. "And in this family, everyone plays their part. Mother needs me. She has needed me since my father died, and she will always need me. You were supposed to be the buffer—the pretty, quiet wife who smiled for the cameras and kept up appearances. But you just had to go poking around, didn't you?"
He twisted my wrist slightly, a sharp spike of pain shooting up my arm.
"Let me go!" I screamed, bringing my free hand up and raking my fingernails down across his cheek.
Four bright red trails of blood instantly bloomed on Ethan’s skin. He hissed in pain, releasing my wrist, and stumbled backward, clutching his cheek.
May you like
It was all the opening I needed.
I didn't run for the door—he was blocking it. I threw myself sideways toward the tall Victorian window overlooking the side garden, slammed my elbow against the antique glass, and screamed at the top of my lungs.
