He examined the photographs I had taken.
“You're sure this is the house?”
“Yes.”
He enlarged the images.
“There's something odd here.”
“What?”
“The property line.”
“What about it?”
“The old survey shows a structure extending beneath the western side of the house.”
I stared at him.
“Beneath it?”
“Possibly an old cellar.”
“Why isn't it on the current records?”
“Because someone removed it.”
“Can they do that?”
“Not legally.”
That was when we realized this wasn't about paintings.
It was about the house.
Marcus helped me obtain older property records.
The deeper we went, the stranger the history became.
In 1948, the house had belonged to a doctor named Harold Voss.
In 1951, his wife disappeared.
No body was ever found.
The official explanation was that she had left the family.
But there was no record of a divorce.
No passport.
No bank withdrawals.
Nothing.
Then, in 1958, Harold Voss died.
The property passed to his son.
And the records suddenly became incomplete.
I stared at the documents.
“What happened in that house?”
Marcus shook his head.
“I don't know.”
I looked toward the neighboring property.
Eleanor had just stepped outside.
She saw me watching.
And immediately went back inside.
That evening, I decided to paint the house one more time.
This time, I focused entirely on the hidden window.
I painted the glass.
The frame.
The wall around it.
Then I noticed something.
The figure behind the glass wasn't a curtain.
It was a person.
A woman.
And she was standing in front of something that looked like a wooden door.
I stopped painting.
I enlarged my original photograph.
There was nothing there.
But the painting had captured something my camera hadn't.
A shape.
A face.
A hand pressed against the glass.
I stepped backward.
Then I noticed the face.
It looked terrified.
At midnight, someone knocked on my front door.
I opened it.
Eleanor stood there.
She was crying.
“Please,” she whispered.
“You have to stop.”
I let her inside.
She looked exhausted.
“I know what you're painting.”
“Then tell me what it is.”
She sat down.
For several minutes, she couldn't speak.
Finally she said:
“My grandmother disappeared in that house.”
I stared at her.