Chapter 3 - THE SILVER KEY
The photograph had been taken the morning after Evelyn died.
Rainwater covered the dock.
A white evidence marker stood beside the broken wineglass.
Beneath the edge of the dock, almost invisible in the shadow, something small reflected the camera flash.
Detective Ramirez enlarged the image.
The object looked like a key attached to a short silver chain.
“It wasn’t listed in the evidence report,” she said.
Harris stood near the library entrance.
He had been security chief at the estate for eleven years.
He had served Grant’s father before working for Grant.
He knew every camera, lock, tunnel, and maintenance passage on the property.
Detective Cole turned toward him.
“Who secured the boathouse after the death?”
Harris hesitated.
“I did.”
“Did you see a key?”
“No.”
Lily stepped behind me.
Harris looked at her.
For the first time since I had known him, the security chief appeared frightened.
Cole noticed it too.
“Is there something you’re not telling us, Mr. Harris?”
“No.”
His answer came too quickly.
“The storm damaged several cameras that night.”
“What about the camera facing the dock?”
“It stopped recording at 9:42 p.m.”
Evelyn had died sometime between ten and eleven.
“Convenient,” Ramirez said.
Harris’s jaw tightened.
“It was a violent storm.”
Detective Cole placed the photograph back on the table.
“We’re going to search the water beneath the dock.”
Grant authorized the search immediately.
By afternoon, police divers had entered the cold lake.
Lily refused to go near the windows overlooking the boathouse.
She sat in the nursery with the curtains closed and drew pictures with a black crayon.
Every picture showed the same three shapes.
A woman in the water.
A little girl on the dock.
A tall figure standing beneath a red umbrella.
I sat beside her.
“Is the woman in the water your mother?”
Lily nodded.
“Is the person with the umbrella Renata?”
She shook her head.
My pulse quickened.
“Was someone else there?”
Lily pressed the crayon so hard that it snapped.
Before she could answer, Grant entered the room.
“They found it.”
We followed him downstairs.
Detective Ramirez stood in the foyer holding a sealed evidence bag.
Inside was a small silver key attached to a tarnished chain.
The key had survived two years beneath the dark water.
Cole placed it beneath a portable evidence light.
Tiny letters were engraved along its side.
E.W.
Evelyn Whitmore.
Grant stared at it.
“I’ve never seen that before.”
Lily touched the plastic bag.
“Mommy wore it under her dress.”
“What does it open?” I asked.
Lily looked toward the west wing.
“The room behind the flowers.”
Grant frowned.
“There’s no room behind the flowers.”
Lily took my hand and led us through the mansion.
She stopped before a mural of white roses painted along the wall outside Evelyn’s former sitting room.
Her small fingers moved across the carved wooden frame.
Then she pressed the center of one painted rose.
A hidden panel clicked open.
Behind it was a narrow keyhole.
Grant inserted the silver key.
The wall shifted inward.
A dark passage appeared behind the mural.
The air smelled of dust and old paper.
Harris stepped forward.
“I should check it first.”
Lily recoiled from him.
“No.”
May you like
Her voice cracked.
“You helped her hide Mommy’s blood.”
