He locked the room and ordered them never to return.
Anna stole the key.
A tiny brass key.
The same kind Lucy had placed on the kitchen table.
Victoria picked it up.
She had not seen it since the summer Anna disappeared.
“We’re opening the room,” she said.
Edward stared at her.
“That part of the house was renovated years ago.”
“The wall is still there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“How?”
“Because I told the contractors not to touch it.”
Edward’s mouth tightened.
Victoria turned toward the hallway.
He grabbed her arm.
“Victoria.”
She looked down at his hand.
He released her immediately.
“You’re making a mistake.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about.”
Margaret insisted Lucy remain downstairs.
Victoria agreed.
She and Edward climbed the staircase toward the unused east wing.
The house changed as they moved farther from the restored guest suites.
Modern lighting gave way to older sconces.
The polished floors became narrower.
Family portraits lined the corridor.
Victoria passed one of herself at fourteen.
Then Anna at twelve.
The painting stopped her.
Anna had thick auburn hair, freckles across her nose, and the same stubborn chin Victoria remembered.
She was smiling.
Lucy had that smile.
Victoria looked away.
At the end of the hall stood a faded section of blue-painted wall.
Edward exhaled.
“This is insane.”
Victoria inserted the brass key.
It turned.
The lock clicked.
After twenty-eight years, the door opened.
Dust moved through the beam of Victoria’s phone flashlight.
The room smelled of old paper and dry wood.
Shelves lined the walls.
Most were empty.
A small desk sat beneath the only window.
Victoria stepped inside.
Her chest tightened.
She remembered Anna sitting on the floor exactly there, sorting through old letters and pretending they were detectives.
Edward remained near the doorway.
“There’s nothing here.”
Victoria ignored him.
She ran her fingers over the desk.
Dust.
Scratches.
An old ink stain.
Then she noticed one drawer sat slightly crooked.
She pulled it.
Locked.
The brass key did not fit.
Edward spoke behind her.
“This proves nothing.”
Victoria examined the wooden frame.
The drawer had been forced shut at some point.
She picked up an old brass candlestick from the shelf and struck the lock.
Edward stepped forward.
“Stop.”
She hit it again.
The small latch cracked.
The drawer opened.
Inside was a bundle of envelopes wrapped in faded blue ribbon.
Victoria’s hands began to shake.
The top envelope read:
Victoria
The handwriting belonged to Anna.
Victoria knew it immediately.
She tore it open.
The paper inside had yellowed.
The date at the top was August 19, 1998.
Three days after Anna supposedly died.
Victoria read the first sentence.
Then she sat down.
Vicky, Dad says I can never come home.
Her vision blurred.
She continued.
Anna wrote that their father had discovered she had been meeting Daniel Mercer, the eighteen-year-old son of a groundskeeper who had worked summers near the estate.
Their relationship had been innocent.
But their father believed Daniel’s family was beneath them.
Anna had threatened to expose something else she had discovered in the hidden room—documents showing that their father had been secretly selling off land held in trust for both daughters.
He panicked.
The night Anna disappeared, their father drove her to a property outside Charleston.
He told her she would be sent to a boarding school.
Instead, he arranged for her to live with distant relatives of their late mother in North Carolina.
He threatened that if Anna contacted Victoria, he would have Daniel arrested for kidnapping.
Anna was twelve.
She believed him.
Victoria covered her mouth.
“No.”
Edward looked away.
She kept reading.
Anna had written again.
And again.
Dozens of letters.
Every one addressed to Victoria.
None delivered.
Dates stretched over years.
Anna described finishing school.
Working.
Finding Daniel again.