Chapter 4 - Room Seventeen didn't exist on any map.That was the first problem.
The second was that someone had clearly built it.
We spent three hours searching every floor of the estate.
Nothing.
No room seventeen.
No hidden chamber.
No secret entrance.
The brass key remained useless.
At 5:12 a.m., Marco discovered something strange in the old architectural plans.
My estate had originally been designed in 1911.
The blueprints showed seventeen rooms in the east wing.
The current building had sixteen.
One room had been removed from every modern plan.
It had been physically sealed.
But not destroyed.
“Where is it?” I asked.
Marco spread the blueprint on the dining table.
“Behind the nursery.”
I looked up.
The same wall.
Again.
We returned to the nursery.
Marco brought cutting equipment.
We removed the decorative paneling.
Then the plaster.
Then the brick.
Behind it was a narrow iron door.
There was no handle.
Only a keyhole.
I inserted the brass key.
It turned.
The door opened inward.
Cold air spilled out.
The room beyond was completely dark.
Marco raised his flashlight.
I stepped inside.
The walls were covered with photographs.
Dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
My children.
Lucia.
Me.
Elena.
Caleb.
Photos taken when I hadn't known anyone was watching.
One showed Theo sleeping in his crib.
Another showed Nora being fed.
Another showed Miles on the nursery floor.
They had been taken yesterday.
I turned slowly.
“How long has someone been inside this house?”
Marco looked around.
“Long enough.”
At the center of the room was a wooden table.
On it sat three small jars.
Each contained a lock of baby hair.
Labels:
THEO.
MILES.
NORA.
I felt sick.
Beside them was another photograph.
Lucia holding three newborn babies.
But something was wrong.
There were four.
One baby was in her arms.
Two lay in bassinets.
And a fourth infant was being carried by someone standing outside the frame.
I grabbed the photograph.
“Who's the fourth baby?”
Marco zoomed in.
The photograph was old.
The fourth child’s face was hidden.
Then Sophie entered.
She stopped at the doorway.
“No.”
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Not this room.”
“You know it?”
She started crying.
“Daddy told me never to come here.”
I crouched.
“Why?”
“Because Mommy was angry.”
My breath caught.
“Which mommy?”
She pointed at the photograph.
“Her.”
Lucia.
I looked at the picture again.
Something caught my eye.
A bracelet on Lucia’s wrist.
I knew that bracelet.
She had given it to me on our wedding night.
There was a small silver heart attached to it.
I had buried her wearing it.
But in this photograph, taken after the birth of my children, the bracelet was still on her wrist.
Which meant the woman in the grave had not been Lucia.
I stepped backward.
Marco whispered:
“Boss?”
“Open the wall.”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Behind the photographs were filing cabinets.
Inside them were medical records.
Pregnancy records.
Blood tests.
DNA analysis.
Psychological evaluations.
And a file with my name.
ADRIEN MORETTI.
I opened it.
The first page contained a photograph.
Me at eighteen years old.
Underneath it was a handwritten note:
SUBJECT SHOWS NO KNOWLEDGE OF GENETIC TRANSFER PROGRAM.
I turned the page.
There were medical records from before I had ever met Lucia.
I kept reading.
The program had a name.
PROJECT MERCY.
The purpose was unclear.
The next pages were heavily redacted.
Then I saw one name.
Dr. Evelyn Vale.
I knew her.
Not personally.
But I had heard the name in my father's old records.
A geneticist.
A scientist who disappeared from Chicago twelve years earlier after being accused of illegally experimenting on children.
My father's files had always called her unstable.
Now she was apparently responsible for the triplets.
I flipped to the final page.
It contained a recent photograph.
Dr. Evelyn Vale.
Alive.
Standing beside Caleb Reed.
And between them was a little girl.
Sophie.
My heart stopped.
The photograph had been taken three months earlier.
Sophie was wearing the same yellow dress.
The same pink ribbon.
But the doll in her arms was different.
It was new.
I stared at the picture.
Then I heard footsteps.
Heavy.
Fast.
Coming from the corridor.
Marco raised his weapon.
“Someone's coming.”
The door slammed shut.
A voice came from the darkness outside.
“Adrien.”
I recognized it.
Caleb.
“Don't shoot.”
Marco's finger tightened around the trigger.
I moved toward the door.
“Caleb?”
“Yes.”
“Open the door.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
A pause.
Then he whispered:
“Because I'm not alone.”
A gunshot tore through the door.
Marco pulled me backward.
The room filled with smoke.
Sophie screamed.
And from somewhere behind the filing cabinets came a second sound.
A baby crying.
Not Theo.
Not Miles.
May you like
Not Nora.
Another baby.
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