Chapter 3: What the Room Remembered
Dominic looked at his mother for a long moment.
Then he stepped around her.
"Dominic—"
"Don't."
He used her word.
Same tone.
He watched it land.
Beatrice's hand dropped to her side.
He took the stairs two at a time.
Claire stayed below with Oliver, one hand resting near the boy without touching him.
Dominic heard his son make a small sound as he reached the upper landing — not a scream.
Something worse.
A held breath.
The east wing corridor was darker than the rest of the house.
Three wall sconces, all unlit.
The smell was different here too — closed air, something faintly chemical beneath it, like cleaning fluid used too recently.
He tried the first door.
Open.
Linen storage, exactly as Beatrice had said.
The second.
Open.
Empty guest room, furniture under white sheets.
The third door at the end of the corridor had a keypad lock.
New.
The kind installed within the last year.
Dominic ran his thumb along the edge of the panel.
No dust on it at all.
He pulled out his phone and called his head of security.
"Marsh.
East wing, end of the corridor.
There's a keypad lock on the last door.
I need it open in the next three minutes."
"Sir, that lock was installed on Mrs.
Vale Senior's authorization.
She—"
"I'm aware of who authorized it.
Open it."
A pause.
"Yes, sir."
He stood in the corridor and waited.
Forty seconds later he heard footsteps on the stairs — not Marsh, not security.
Beatrice.
She came to the top of the landing and stopped.
"You don't want to do this," she said.
"You keep telling me what I want." Dominic didn't turn around.
"You've been doing it my entire life."
"I'm telling you for your sake."
"No." He looked at her then.
"You're telling me for yours."
Beatrice's jaw tightened.
She said nothing.
Marsh appeared at the far end of the corridor, a small override device in his hand.
He looked between Dominic and Beatrice once, then moved to the keypad without a word.
The man had worked for Vale Logistics for eleven years.
He understood which direction his loyalty ran.
The lock disengaged with a soft click.
Dominic pushed the door open.
The room was not storage.
It was a bedroom.
Small, carefully arranged.
A single bed with a pale blue cover, neatly made.
A child's drawings taped to the wall — crayon figures, a house, a woman with long dark hair.
A small wooden chair.
A half-eaten packet of crackers on the bedside table.
And on the bed, curled on top of the covers with her knees drawn to her chest, was a woman.
She was thin.
Too thin.
Her dark hair was unwashed, tangled at the ends.
She wore a grey cardigan two sizes too large and held a small stuffed rabbit against her chest — the kind sold in hospital gift shops.
She looked up when the door opened.
Dominic's hand gripped the door frame.
He knew her face.
He had stood at her funeral.
"Celeste," he said.
The word came out as barely a sound.
She stared at him.
Her eyes were glassy, uncertain, as if she wasn't sure whether he was real.
Then her lips moved.
"Dominic."
Behind him, Beatrice spoke from the corridor.
"I can explain."
He didn't turn around.
His wife — his d*ad wife — was sitting three feet away from him, alive, in a locked room in his own house.
"You have one chance," he said quietly.
May you like
"One.
And then I call the police."
