“Anna's.”
Mark's expression hardened.
“You had her diary for twenty-seven years?”
“She gave it to me the night of the fire.”
“Then she survived.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because Anna came to my house at two in the morning covered in blood.”
Mark froze.
“She told me Richard was in danger. She gave me the diary and told me never to let anyone find it.”
“And then?”
“She left.”
“Where?”
“The Grandview.”
Eleanor's voice dropped.
“Room 314 caught fire less than an hour later.”
Mark stared at the empty box.
“What was in the diary?”
“I never read all of it.”
“Why?”
“Because the first pages were enough.”
Eleanor turned toward him.
“Anna had been investigating Richard.”
“Investigating what?”
“People disappearing.”
Mark frowned.
“What people?”
“Employees. Contractors. Accountants.”
Eleanor swallowed.
“Anyone who discovered what was underneath the Grandview.”
Mark went silent.
“The basement.”
“Yes.”
“The elevator we found.”
“Yes.”
“What is down there?”
Eleanor looked toward the rain-streaked windows.
“I don't know.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Both turned.
Nothing.
Then Mark saw something on the bed.
A cassette recorder.
It hadn't been there when they entered.
Eleanor approached slowly.
A piece of paper was taped to it.
PLAY ME.
Mark pressed the button.
Static filled the bedroom.
Then Anna's voice emerged.
Young.
Terrified.
“If you're hearing this, Richard failed.”
Eleanor stopped breathing.
The recording continued.
“The Grandview isn't just a hotel. It never was.”
Static.
“There is a room beneath basement three. Richard calls it the Archive.”
Mark looked at Eleanor.
“Archive?”
The recording crackled.
“Everything is there. Payments. Photographs. Names. Judges. Police. Businessmen. People who thought they were buying silence.”
Eleanor's face drained.
Then Anna said something stranger.
“And the child.”
Mark stepped closer to the recorder.
“What child?”
As though answering him across twenty-seven years, Anna continued.
“The child must never know who she is.”
Mark frowned.
“She?”
Eleanor's knees nearly gave way.
No.
That wasn't possible.
Anna continued.
“Eleanor promised to protect her.”
Mark slowly turned.
“Mom?”
The recorder clicked.
Then another voice appeared.
Richard.
“If anyone finds this recording, understand something. Anna was right about the Archive.”
A pause.
“But she was wrong about me.”
Static swallowed several words.
Then:
“I wasn't running it.”
Another pause.
“I was trying to destroy it.”
Eleanor covered her mouth.
Richard's voice continued.
“And if Eleanor is still alive, tell her the girl we saved from Room 314 wasn't Anna's daughter.”
Mark stared at Eleanor.
Richard spoke one final sentence.
“She was ours.”
The tape stopped.
Silence.
Mark looked stunned.
“Ours?”
Eleanor whispered, “No.”
A sound came from downstairs.
The front door closing.
Mark moved toward the hallway.
“Someone's here.”
Eleanor grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
Footsteps entered the foyer.
Slowly.
Then began climbing the stairs.
One step.
Another.
Another.
Mark pulled Eleanor behind him.
A shadow appeared beneath the bedroom door.
The footsteps stopped.
Three knocks.
Eleanor couldn't breathe.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Mark opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
But a woman was standing at the far end.
Around sixty.
Gray-streaked hair.
Thin face.
A scar running from her jaw toward her neck.
Eleanor recognized her instantly.
The woman smiled.
“Hello, Eleanor.”