Chapter 2: The Woman With the Coffee Cup
Gideon didn't speak for a long moment.
He just stood there, staring up those nineteen steps, his jaw tight, his hand still pressed flat against the wall.
Then Walter appeared in the kitchen doorway — older, gray, moving fast for a man his age.
He took one look at me on the floor and stopped breathing.
"Call an ambulance," Gideon said.
"Now."
Walter didn't move immediately.
His eyes went to the stairs.
Then to the floor.
Then back to Gideon.
Something passed between them that I couldn't read.
"Walter."
"Yes, sir."
He left.
Gideon crouched back down beside me.
His voice dropped so low I almost missed it.
"How long have you been using the back stairs?"
"Every morning," I said.
"It's faster to the medication room."
His expression didn't change.
But something behind his eyes did.
"Who else knew that?"
I started to answer.
Then I heard it.
Footsteps on the floor above us.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Moving toward the top of the back staircase.
Then a voice floated down — smooth, almost bored.
"Oh my.
Is she still down there?"
It was Sera.
Gideon's sister.
She was looking down at me from the landing with a cup of coffee in her hand and absolutely no surprise on her face.
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What Gideon found in Sera's room two hours later changed everything.
Click the link below to read the full story — the truth is worse than anyone in that mansion was prepared for.
