Chapter 20 - THE KEY WITH NO ADDRESS
The address led to a small blue house near the Connecticut shoreline.
No one answered the door.
The neighbors said a woman named Becca had lived there for several years, working as a bookkeeper at a marina. She moved away three months earlier without saying where she was going.
Inside the empty mailbox, I found a single brass key.
It matched the key to Room 814.
A strip of paper had been tied around it.
Vivian—when you are ready, return to the room alone.
Paige wanted to come with me.
I told her no.
Some doors belong to families.
Others belong to the person who spent years being afraid to open them.
Ashford Grand was quiet when I arrived after midnight. Room 814 had been sealed during the investigation, but my key still opened the hidden entrance.
The metal cabinets had been removed. The long table remained.
Someone had placed a small lamp in the center of it.
Beside the lamp sat a fresh cup of coffee.
Steam still rose from the surface.
“Rebecca?” I called.
No answer.
On the table was a folder containing copies of every document needed to convict Noah and Marlene. Some records had never appeared in the investigation.
The final page was a handwritten letter.
You always believed strength meant staying. I survived by leaving. Neither of us was wrong.
My knees weakened.
A shadow moved behind the frosted glass partition at the back of the room.
I took one step forward.
The hidden door behind me closed.
A woman spoke from the other side of the glass.
Her voice was older than I remembered, but I knew it before she finished the first word.
“Viv.”
I pressed my hand against the partition.
Rebecca placed hers against the glass from the other side.
For nine years, I had imagined what I would say if I could see her again.
I would tell her Noah was in prison.
I would tell her the employees had their retirement savings back.
I would tell her Paige knew the truth.
But when the partition slowly began to open, none of those words came.
I could only whisper, “You came home.”
Rebecca stepped into the light.
There was a scar beside her temple and fear in her eyes, but she was alive.
She looked at me for a long moment.
Then her gaze shifted toward the hidden door.
“I didn’t come alone,” she said.
A second set of footsteps approached from the corridor.
Rebecca gripped my hand.
Her face turned pale.
“Vivian, there’s something you need to know about Paige.”
The door handle began to move.
May you like
And before it opened, the lights went out.
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