Chapter 17: Eleven Missing Minutes
The center entered emergency lockdown.
Rosa moved the residents into the secure interior wing while Detective Ellis searched the building with three officers.
The electronic locks had activated without authorization.
No one could explain how.
Claire checked the security system from the legal office.
“Someone accessed the original Cross mansion network,” she said. “The old wiring was supposed to have been removed.”
“Supposed to have been?” I asked.
“The contractors replaced every visible component.”
“Visible?”
Claire did not answer.
Detective Ellis joined us near the entrance.
“The building is clear.”
“What about the sedan?”
“No plates. Traffic cameras lost it two blocks away.”
Mara sat with Lily in one of the residential rooms. Rosa had given them food, clean clothes, and a key they controlled themselves.
Mara still would not explain Aster House.
She insisted she needed time.
At 2:17 in the morning, an alarm sounded in the nursery wing.
I woke on the couch in my office and ran into the hall.
Rosa was already outside Mara’s room.
The door was locked from the inside.
“Mara?” Rosa called.
No answer.
Detective Ellis used the emergency override.
We entered.
Lily was asleep beneath the blankets.
Mara was gone.
The window had not been opened.
The bathroom was empty.
There was no second exit.
Rosa woke Lily gently.
The child stared at the empty bed.
“Where is your mother?” Ellis asked.
Lily clutched her rabbit.
“She went with the lady.”
“What lady?”
“The one who smelled like flowers.”
My stomach tightened.
Margaret had always worn rose perfume.
But Margaret Cross was serving a prison sentence under federal protection.
“She said Mommy had to come,” Lily continued.
“Did your mother want to go?”
Lily shook her head.
“She told me not to wake up.”
Claire pulled up the security footage.
The hallway camera showed Mara entering the room with Lily at 10:42 p.m.
No one else entered.
At 2:06 a.m., the recording froze.
It resumed at 2:17.
Eleven minutes were missing.
Detective Ellis examined the walls.
Rosa checked behind the curtains and beneath the bed.
I noticed Lily watching the bathroom mirror.
“What are you looking at?” I asked.
She pointed.
Words had been traced into the fogged glass.
The bathroom had been dry when we entered.
I stepped closer.
ASK VICTOR ABOUT ASTER HOUSE.
My father arrived twenty minutes later.
He read the message without speaking.
His expression told me Mara had been right.
“You know what it means,” I said.
Victor looked at Lily.
“Not here.”
“You do not get to protect me with silence anymore.”
“Elena—”
“A woman disappeared from a locked room. Someone photographed my son. Tell me what Aster House is.”
My father closed his eyes.
“It was supposed to be a shelter.”
“Supposed to be?”
“It became something else.”
“What?”
He looked toward the walls of the mansion.
“A place where powerful families made unwanted women disappear.”
Behind us, Lily spoke quietly.
“My mommy said there was a red book.”
Victor turned sharply.
“What red book?”
May you like
Lily pointed toward the abandoned blue nursery.
“She said they hid it inside the wall.”
