Chapter 3 - THE SILVER LOCKET
Evelyn’s hand paused in mid-air.
The silence in the nursery stretched, thick and suffocating. Grant watched his mother’s face carefully. He was looking for a flinch, a twitch, any sign that the polished veneer was cracking.
Instead, Evelyn simply lowered her hand and offered a gentle, maternal sigh.
"Grant, darling, she’s three years old. Children lose jewelry in the gardens all the time. Nora never should have given her that expensive locket to play with in the first place."
"Nora didn't give it to her to play with," Grant replied smoothly, refusing to break eye contact. "Nora wore that locket every day. She had it on when she left the house the night she died. The police didn't return it with her personal effects."
"Then it was lost in the wreckage," Evelyn said. She placed the tray of milk on the nightstand. "You’re exhausted, Grant. The stress of today is making you imagine conspiracies. Go pour yourself a drink. I will sit with Ella."
Under the duvet, Ella whimpered.
Grant didn't move. He looked at his terrified daughter, then at the orange vest in his hands, and finally at his mother.
"No," Grant said. He stood up. "I'm staying in here tonight. And tomorrow, I'm taking her to the city with me."
Evelyn’s jaw tightened, just for a fraction of a second. "As you wish."
She turned and walked out, pulling the door shut behind her.
Grant locked the bedroom door. He pulled a heavy velvet armchair against the wood. Then he sat down in the dark, the three holes in the orange vest burning a hole in his mind.
Ten miles away, Rosa sat at a small Formica table in Marisol’s cramped apartment.
The only light came from a flickering streetlamp outside the window. Rosa had a yellow legal pad in front of her. She was writing down everything she remembered about the Whitmore mansion.
"You can't go back there, Rosa," Marisol said, pouring two cups of chamomile tea. "If Evelyn catches you on the property, she’ll have you arrested for trespassing."
"I left my master keys in my locker in the staff breakroom," Rosa said, ignoring the warning. "Evelyn doesn't know I still have access to the pool house."
"What is in the pool house?"
Rosa looked up. "The security console. The one Evelyn said was broken by the storm last week. The main cameras were off, but the backup drive for the perimeter cameras runs on a closed battery loop. Evelyn doesn't know about technology. If she did something to that vest outside, the patio camera caught it."
Marisol shook her head. "It's suicide."
"Ella is three years old, Marisol. She called my name when she was going under. I am not leaving her to that monster."
At 2:00 AM, the Westchester estate was shrouded in heavy fog.
Rosa moved silently through the wet grass, dressed in dark clothing. She knew the blind spots of the property. She bypassed the main driveway and slipped through the wrought-iron gate near the old maple trees.
The mansion loomed like a dark fortress. Only one light was on—the window of Evelyn’s ground-floor study.
Rosa crept toward the pool house. She unlocked the side door, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She slipped inside, locking it behind her, and turned on her small penlight.
The security console was hidden behind a wooden cabinet. Rosa booted it up. The screen glowed to life, casting a pale blue light across the room.
She quickly scrubbed the footage to 1:15 PM that afternoon.
There it was.
Evelyn standing in the alcove. The needle in her hand. The three deliberate stabs into the orange plastic.
Rosa let out a shaky breath. She pulled a flash drive from her pocket and began copying the file. She had her proof. She could go to the police.
Suddenly, she heard a sound outside.
It wasn't a footstep. It was a scrape. Metal against dirt.
Rosa froze. She peered through the wooden blinds of the pool house window.
Thirty feet away, in the middle of Mrs. Whitmore’s prized white rose garden, Evelyn was kneeling in the dirt. She was wearing a heavy trench coat over her nightgown. In her hand was a small garden trowel.
Rosa watched in disbelief as the elegant, wealthy woman dug a shallow hole in the soil.
Evelyn reached into her coat pocket, pulled something small and metallic out, and dropped it into the hole. She quickly covered it with dirt, patted it down, and walked back toward the mansion.
Rosa waited until the study light went out.
Then, she crept out of the pool house and walked to the rose garden.
She dropped to her knees, dug her bare hands into the cold, damp earth, and felt something hard.
She pulled it out and wiped away the mud.
It was a heavy silver locket. The chain was broken.
Rosa clicked the clasp open. Inside was a tiny photograph of Grant and Ella.
It was Nora’s necklace. The one she supposedly died wearing.
May you like
But as Rosa turned the locket over in her palm, the moonlight caught something etched into the back of the silver. It wasn't an engraving. It was a dark, dried substance crusted into the hinges.
It was blood.
