Chapter 3 - The Woman in the PhotographVanessa was gone.
By the time Daniel forced the study door open, she had disappeared from the house.
So had Lily's birthday guests.
Someone had apparently evacuated the children while Daniel was upstairs.
Only overturned chairs and scattered balloons remained in the backyard.
Daniel searched every room.
Nothing.
No Vanessa.
No sign of her leaving.
No front door alert.
No garage opening.
The security system showed no exits.
It was as if she had vanished inside the house.
Daniel returned to the study.
Evan stood beside the metal compartment.
“You need to sit down.”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don't want to sit down.”
“You're angry.”
“I'm past angry.”
He held up the photograph of Vanessa and his father.
“Start talking.”
Evan took a breath.
“Your father built Stellan Advanced Systems twenty-three years ago. The company officially collapsed after a federal investigation into missing defense contracts.”
“I know.”
“You were told your father falsified financial records.”
“Yes.”
“He didn't.”
Daniel stared at him.
“Then what happened?”
Evan opened the metal box.
“He discovered someone inside the company was selling proprietary technology to foreign contractors.”
Daniel looked at the documents.
Names were blacked out.
Payment records were incomplete.
But one name appeared again and again.
MERCER SECURITY CONSULTING.
Daniel looked up.
“Your family?”
Evan nodded.
“My father worked for yours.”
“Then why are you investigating him?”
“Because he died.”
“How?”
“Same way your father supposedly died.”
Daniel felt the room shrink.
“What are you talking about?”
Evan opened his phone and showed him a photograph.
A burned car.
A mountain road.
Police tape.
“Four years ago, my father disappeared. They found his vehicle at the bottom of a ravine. No body.”
Daniel stared at the image.
“When did this happen?”
“Three months after Richard Stellan died.”
Daniel looked at the documents again.
Everything pointed toward a connection.
His phone buzzed.
This time it was a security notification.
LILY'S BEDROOM CAMERA: MOTION DETECTED.
Daniel rushed upstairs.
The bedroom door was open.
Lily was not there.
His heart stopped.
“Lily!”
He searched the closet.
Bathroom.
Hallway.
Nothing.
Then he heard a soft sound beneath the bed.
A whimper.
Daniel dropped to his knees.
Lily was hiding underneath.
He pulled her out.
She clung to him.
“I told you,” she whispered.
“About what?”
“The man.”
“Where did he go?”
“He left.”
“How?”
She pointed toward the wall.
Daniel stared.
There was a small panel behind the bed.
He removed it.
Inside was a narrow service passage.
Old pipes.
Wires.
Dust.
But recent footprints.
Someone had been using it.
Evan crouched beside him.
“This house has a concealed maintenance route.”
“My father built this house.”
“Yes.”
Daniel remembered something from childhood.
His father had once told him never to play near the west wall because there were dangerous electrical systems behind it.
Daniel had believed him.
Until now.
He crawled inside.
Thirty feet later, the passage opened behind the old library.
On the floor sat a leather suitcase.
Daniel opened it.
Inside were children's drawings.
Dozens of them.
Some were twenty years old.
Others were recent.
All drawn by Lily.
Daniel went cold.
But Lily had not drawn them.
Her name was written on the backs.
LILY, AGE 3.
Daniel turned.
“Why does someone have drawings of my daughter?”
Evan picked one up.
It showed the Stellan house.
A stick figure stood outside.
Above it, Lily had supposedly written:
DADDY'S SECRET HOUSE.
Daniel stared.
“My daughter can't write this.”
“Exactly.”
Another drawing showed Vanessa.
Another showed Daniel's father.
And the final drawing showed three adults standing around a locked black door.
One had been crossed out.
Underneath, someone had written:
ONE IS LYING.
Daniel returned downstairs with Lily.
He found the cassette recorder in the study.
It still worked.
He inserted the tape.
Static crackled.
Then his father's voice filled the room.
Daniel stopped breathing.
Richard Stellan said one sentence.
“If you're hearing this, Daniel, Vanessa has already found the key.”
Daniel looked at the metal box.
The key was still inside.
Then the recording continued.
“She will tell you she married you because she loved you.”
A pause.
“She is lying.”
Vanessa suddenly appeared in the doorway.
Her face was streaked with tears.
“Turn it off.”
Daniel slowly looked at her.
She whispered, “Please.”
“You knew.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
“What did you know?”
Vanessa opened her eyes.
“That your father didn't die when they said he did.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“Then where is he?”
She looked past Daniel.
At Lily.
Then at Evan.
May you like
And whispered:
“Under the house.”
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