CHAPTER 3— THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Adrian placed the flowers beside my bed.
White roses.
My favorite.
At least, they used to be.
“I told you,” he said quietly. “You have nowhere to go.”
Detective Ellis stepped between us.
“You have temporary medical authority. That does not give you permission to threaten her.”
Adrian’s expression became wounded.
“I came to see my wife.”
“You came with private guards.”
“For my safety.”
He showed Ellis the bruise on his wrist where my father’s security officer had grabbed him.
The bruise looked convincing.
Men like Adrian understood the power of visible injuries.
My wounds had always been hidden beneath sleeves, makeup, and carefully chosen dresses.
His single bruise was displayed like proof of persecution.
A nurse entered and checked the monitor around my stomach.
My son’s heartbeat remained steady.
That sound became my anchor.
Adrian leaned closer.
“Come home willingly,” he whispered. “I can still protect you from what happens next.”
I looked at the flowers.
Then at him.
“What happens next?”
“Your father goes to prison.”
He straightened.
“You are declared incompetent.”
His fingers brushed one of the white petals.
“And our son is raised by people strong enough to shape him.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I smiled.
Exactly as I had done for the past three weeks.
“You won.”
Adrian studied me.
He expected resistance.
My surrender unsettled him.
“I want to go home,” I said.
Detective Ellis stared at me.
I did not look at her.
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because I’m tired.”
He smiled slowly.
“I’ll arrange it.”
The hospital released me the following afternoon under strict monitoring.
Adrian believed I had broken.
He did not know Detective Ellis had slipped a tracking device into the lining of my coat.
He did not know Claire had placed a second recorder inside my hospital bracelet.
And he did not know I had seen something in the doctored security footage.
A reflection.
For less than one second, a woman appeared in the glass doors of Adrian’s study.
Not Margaret.
Not a servant I recognized.
A thin woman with dark hair and a scar near her temple.
When we returned to the mansion, Adrian locked himself in the library to take a call.
Margaret had gone to meet her attorneys.
I walked upstairs slowly, one hand on my stomach.
The housekeeper, Rosa, waited beside the linen closet.
She had worked for the Cross family longer than Adrian and I had been married.
For two years, she had avoided my eyes whenever I appeared with a new bruise.
That day, she finally looked at me.
“Third floor,” she whispered.
“The blue room.”
“There is no blue room.”
“There is.”
She slipped a small brass key into my palm.
“Mrs. Cross keeps it hidden.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Rosa’s eyes filled with shame.
“Because I helped the woman before you too late.”
Before I could question her, footsteps sounded below.
I climbed the servants’ staircase to the third floor.
At the end of a narrow hallway, behind an antique wardrobe, I found a concealed door painted the same color as the wall.
The brass key opened it.
Inside was a nursery.
Not a new nursery prepared for my son.
An old one.
Dust covered the crib.
Faded blue stars decorated the ceiling.
A wooden horse sat in the corner.
On the wall were photographs of Adrian with another woman.
She wore a wedding ring.
In one photograph, she was pregnant.
In another, she stood beside Margaret at a charity gala.
The woman had dark hair.
And a scar near her temple.
The same woman reflected in the security footage.
A newspaper clipping lay inside the crib.
LYDIA VALE, WIFE OF DEVELOPER ADRIAN CROSS, DIES IN PRIVATE CLINIC FIRE.
The date was seven years earlier.
Adrian had never told me he had been married.
He had never told me his first wife had been pregnant.
A floorboard creaked behind me.
I turned.
The woman from the photographs stood in the doorway.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
She placed one finger against her lips.
“You have to leave before Adrian finds you.”
I stared at her.
“You’re Lydia.”
“Yes.”
“The papers said you died.”
“That’s what Margaret paid them to print.”
Her gaze dropped to my stomach.
“They did this to me too.”
My breath stopped.
Lydia stepped into the room and closed the door.
“They drugged me. Forged my records. Took my daughter before I woke up.”
“Your daughter?”
Lydia’s face broke.
“I spent seven years looking for her.”
“Where is she?”
Lydia looked toward the hallway.
May you like
“In this house.”
Then the door handle began to turn.
