CHAPTER 2: THE RED ROOM
Nathaniel watched his uncle’s face on the screen.
Malcolm Blackwood had spent three years acting like a grieving family member.
He had funded private investigators.
He had offered rewards for information.
He had stood beside Nathaniel during television interviews and promised that the Blackwood family would never stop searching.
All while Claire lived beneath their feet.
“Seal the cliff exit,” Nathaniel ordered.
A security officer spoke into his radio.
There was no response.
“The lower communications system is dead.”
On the monitor, Vanessa and Malcolm disappeared from view.
Nathaniel turned toward the control panels.
“Can we access the exterior cameras?”
Rosa stepped into the room.
“I can.”
Everyone looked at her.
She moved to the computer and entered a series of commands.
Nathaniel studied her.
“How do you know the password?”
“Because I was forced to work here.”
Rosa’s voice remained quiet.
“I cleaned the rooms, delivered medication, and monitored Mrs. Blackwood when the others were away.”
Claire stared at her.
“You were the one who left food beside my bed.”
Rosa nodded.
“And the blankets during winter.”
“Why didn’t you help me escape?”
Rosa’s eyes filled with shame.
“They had my younger brother.”
Nathaniel felt the room become colder.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know. They said he was being held at a private medical facility.”
Rosa pulled up the exterior cameras.
A black SUV raced down the service road toward the eastern gate.
Nathaniel called the gatehouse directly.
No answer.
Then the security feed showed the gate opening.
Someone on Nathaniel’s own team had released them.
Nathaniel contacted the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, but Rosa quickly grabbed his arm.
“You can’t.”
He stared at her.
“Why?”
“Malcolm controls the sheriff.”
Nathaniel almost dismissed the claim.
Then he remembered how quickly authorities had closed Claire’s disappearance investigation. How evidence had gone missing. How every official lead had collapsed.
Malcolm had not merely hidden Claire.
He had built an entire system around her disappearance.
Claire lowered herself into a chair.
Her breathing became uneven.
Nathaniel knelt in front of her.
“What did they do to you?”
She looked toward the medical equipment.
“They gave me injections.”
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
She pressed her fingers against her temples.
“Some days I remembered everything. Other days I believed my name was Eleanor.”
Nathaniel closed his eyes.
Claire continued.
“Vanessa would bring me photographs of you. She told me you had remarried. She said you knew I was alive but didn’t want me anymore.”
“I never stopped looking.”
“I know that now.”
Her voice cracked.
“But down here, I didn’t know what was real.”
Nathaniel looked at Rosa.
“Who prescribed the medication?”
“Dr. Elias Mercer.”
Nathaniel recognized the name.
Mercer had served as the Blackwood family physician for fifteen years. He had signed Claire’s death certificate even though no body had ever been recovered.
Nathaniel stood.
“I want every record copied.”
Rosa opened the server directory.
Most folders were protected, but one file had been left open.
PROJECT MIRROR.
Inside were recordings of Claire undergoing psychological conditioning.
Vanessa’s voice could be heard repeating the same statements.
Nathaniel abandoned you.
Your name is Eleanor.
Claire Blackwood died at sea.
You attacked your husband.
You cannot trust your memories.
Nathaniel turned away from the screen.
He could not watch more.
Claire forced herself to keep looking.
“There.”
She pointed to a date.
“That was the week I disappeared.”
Rosa opened the recording.
Claire appeared in an evening dress, seated inside the red room. She looked healthy but furious.
Vanessa stood across from her.
“You copied the financial records,” Vanessa said in the video.
Claire lifted her chin.
“If anything happens to me, the evidence will be released.”
Malcolm entered the frame.
“No, it won’t.”
He placed a document on the table.
It authorized Claire’s involuntary psychiatric treatment.
At the bottom of the page was Nathaniel’s signature.
The real Nathaniel stepped closer to the monitor.
“I never signed that.”
In the recording, Claire stared at the document.
“My husband would never do this.”
Malcolm leaned toward her.
“Your husband signs whatever I place in front of him.”
Nathaniel felt as if the floor had vanished.
During that period, he had signed hundreds of corporate documents without reading every page. Malcolm and Vanessa had managed his schedule, legal files, and investment approvals.
Had they hidden the order inside another contract?
Had Nathaniel unknowingly helped imprison his own wife?
Claire watched him carefully.
“That’s why I was afraid when I saw you tonight.”
The words cut deeper than anger.
Nathaniel sat beside her.
“I don’t know whether that signature is real.”
Claire looked back at the screen.
“But you don’t know that it isn’t.”
A sudden alarm sounded.
Red lights flashed across the underground room.
Rosa checked the system.
“They’ve activated the destruction protocol.”
“What does that mean?” Nathaniel asked.
Smoke began seeping through vents near the ceiling.
“They’re burning the records.”
Nathaniel ordered everyone out, but Claire did not move.
She was staring at a photograph attached to the final folder.
The image showed Claire unconscious inside an operating room.
A date was printed at the bottom.
It had been taken seven months after her disappearance.
Claire touched her abdomen.
“I remember this room.”
Nathaniel looked at the medical notes beside the photograph.
Most of the words were coded.
But one line was clear.
PATIENT DELIVERED SUCCESSFULLY.
Nathaniel stared at his wife.
May you like
Claire’s face crumpled.
“I was pregnant when they took me.”
