Victor denied ordering any room sealed.

Rosa did not.

“The morning Mrs. Harlan died, construction workers arrived before the police left,” she said.

“What did they seal?” Evelyn asked.

“A room beneath the original chapel.”

“There is no chapel.”

“There was.”

The eastern guest wing had been expanded over it during one of Adrian’s renovations.

Old architectural plans revealed a rectangular space beneath the foundation’s counseling center.

There was no listed entrance.

Caroline noticed an unusual gap between two support walls.

Workers removed part of the floor.

Beneath it, they discovered a stone staircase.

Victor remained at the top.

“I never knew this existed.”

Rosa looked at him.

“You signed the construction order.”

“I signed hundreds of documents Katherine’s family attorneys prepared.”

“Then someone used your signature.”

The staircase ended at a heavy steel door.

A biometric panel had been installed beside it.

The technology was newer than the room.

Gabriel pressed his thumb against the scanner.

The panel turned green.

Everyone stared at him.

“I have never been here,” he said.

“But the system recognizes you,” Evelyn replied.

The door opened.

Inside was a furnished apartment.

A bed.

A table.

A bathroom.

Medical equipment.

The room looked less like a prison than a place designed to keep someone alive indefinitely.

On the wall, Katherine’s handwriting appeared in dozens of lines.

DATES.

NAMES.

BANK NUMBERS.

At the center, she had written:

THE HEIR MUST NEVER KNOW WHAT HE IS.

Mara sat on the floor beside the bed.

She was alive.

Her hands had been bound, but she appeared physically unharmed.

Evelyn rushed to her.

“Who brought you here?”

Mara looked toward Gabriel.

“He did.”

Gabriel remained near the door under guard.

“I have never entered this room.”

Mara shook her head violently.

“I saw you.”

“When?”

“After Katherine died.”

Gabriel’s expression tightened.

“I was fourteen.”

“You were here. You stood outside that door while they questioned me.”

Gabriel stared at her.

“I don’t remember you.”

“That was the purpose of this room,” Mara said. “They erased memory here.”

Investigators examined the medical equipment.

Some devices carried the logos of clinics already connected to fraudulent confinement cases.

Others were military-grade and unregistered.

Mara pointed beneath the bed.

Evelyn found a wooden box.

Inside were videotapes.

Each tape was labeled with a person’s name.

KATHERINE HARLAN.

MARA ELLISON.

GABRIEL.

VICTOR HARLAN.

And one tape labeled:

EVELYN — AGE SIX.

Evelyn stared at it.

“I was never here.”

Mara’s voice trembled.

“You were.”

Victor stepped backward.

“That is impossible.”

A small television sat on the table.

Evelyn inserted the tape.

The screen flickered.

A six-year-old Evelyn appeared seated in the same room.

Someone off camera asked her a question.

“Where did your mother hide the book?”

The child Evelyn looked frightened.

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Then she gave an answer the adult Evelyn had no memory of saying.

“Inside my brother.”