Chapter 2 - The PhotographWilliam stared at Isabella as though he had never seen her before.
The Sterling mansion was hosting three hundred people that night—politicians, CEOs, athletes, old-money families whose last names were printed on hospital wings and university libraries. A string quartet played beneath a crystal chandelier while servers like me moved through the crowd carrying champagne that cost more per bottle than my monthly rent.
There was noise everywhere.
Glasses clinking.
People laughing.
A piano from the east salon.
So when I passed the upstairs gallery and heard a faint sob behind an enormous oil painting, I almost kept walking.
Almost.
Then I heard it again.
“Please…”
I stopped.
The painting covered half the wall. It showed the Sterling estate in winter, all white columns and snow-covered trees. A gold plaque beneath it read:
STERLING HOUSE — 1912
I glanced down the hallway.
Empty.
Guests weren't supposed to be upstairs. Neither were catering staff unless we were carrying trays to the private lounge.
I leaned closer.
“Hello?”
Silence.
I felt ridiculous.
Then something scratched behind the wall.
Three times.
Scratch.
Scratch.
Scratch.
I set my champagne tray on an antique table.
“My name is Grace,” I whispered. “Is somebody there?”
A tiny hand appeared through the decorative brass vent beneath the painting.
I nearly screamed.
Small fingers curled around the grate.
“Please,” a boy whispered. “Get me out.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“Oh my God.”
I dropped to my knees.
“What's your name?”
“Ethan.”
The Sterling boy.
Every employee had been warned about him before the party.
Five-year-old Ethan Sterling, the only child of billionaire real-estate developer William Sterling.
According to the household manager, Ethan had been taken to his grandmother's home in Connecticut for the weekend because William didn't want him surrounded by strangers.
Except Ethan wasn't in Connecticut.
He was inside the wall.
“Are you hurt?”
“I'm hungry.”
Those two words destroyed every excuse my brain had been trying to create.
I stood and grabbed the painting.
It was heavier than it looked.
I pulled.
Nothing.
I pulled harder.
The frame moved three inches.
Behind it was a narrow metal door almost perfectly disguised inside the wood paneling.
“Ethan?”
“I’m here.”
There was a lock.
Old.
Brass.
No handle on my side.
I looked around wildly and saw an iron fireplace poker resting beside a decorative hearth.
I grabbed it.
“Move away from the door, sweetheart.”
“What?”
“Get as far back as you can.”
I jammed the poker beneath the lock plate.
Metal screamed.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
I froze.
A woman's voice sliced through the hallway.
“What do you think you're doing?”
I turned.
Isabella Sterling stood twenty feet away.
William Sterling's second wife was impossible to miss. She wore a black evening gown, diamonds around her throat, and the expression of a woman who had never been told no.
But I barely noticed the diamonds.
I noticed what she was holding.
A brass key.
Her gaze went from the poker in my hand to the shifted painting.
Then to the tiny fingers visible through the vent.
Her face changed.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Fear.
“Put that down,” she said.
I didn't move.
“There is a child inside this wall.”
“I know.”
Those two words chilled me more than anything else could have.
“You know?”
Isabella walked toward me.
“He's being punished.”
“Punished?”
“He has behavioral problems.”
“He's five.”
“You work for the caterer, correct?”
I tightened my grip on the poker.
“Yes.”
“Then understand something, Grace. You saw nothing tonight.”
Behind the grate, Ethan whimpered.
I looked at the brass key.
“You locked him in there.”
Her expression hardened.
“Move away from the door.”
“No.”
“I can have you arrested for trespassing.”
“And I can call the police.”
“You think they'll believe a temporary waitress over me?”
I reached for my phone.
Isabella moved faster than I expected.
She slapped it from my hand.
It struck the marble floor and shattered.
Then she leaned close enough that I could smell her expensive perfume.
“Put him back.”
I stared at her.
“He's already in there.”
“I mean when you open it.”
My blood went cold.
“You expect me to open that room and put a terrified child back inside?”
Isabella's eyes narrowed.
“You have no idea what you're interfering with.”
A sound came from behind us.
Heavy footsteps.
Male.
Isabella stepped back.
William Sterling appeared at the far end of the gallery.
I'd seen photographs of him on magazine covers, usually beneath headlines about billion-dollar acquisitions.
He was taller than I'd expected, broad-shouldered, silver beginning at his temples.
He took one look at me.
Then Isabella.
Then the painting hanging crooked from the wall.
“What happened?”
Nobody spoke.
Ethan did.
“Daddy?”
William stopped breathing.
His face lost every trace of color.
“Ethan?”
The little hand reached farther through the vent.
“Daddy, please.”
William crossed the hallway so quickly Isabella barely had time to move.
He seized the fireplace poker from me and drove it beneath the brass lock.
The wood cracked.
The concealed door swung inward.
A smell of dust and stale air came rushing out.
Inside was a room no bigger than a closet.
Ethan Sterling sat curled in the corner wearing dinosaur pajamas.
His cheeks were streaked with tears.
Beside him sat an empty plastic water bottle.
An empty bowl.
And a small dog bone.
William stared.
For several seconds, billionaire William Sterling looked less like the most powerful man in the room and more like a father whose entire world had just stopped.
Then Ethan lifted his arms.
“Daddy.”
William dropped the poker and lifted his son.
Ethan buried his face in his father's neck.
“She said you wouldn't find me.”
William slowly turned toward his wife.
Isabella was already stepping backward.
His voice came out dangerously quiet.
“How long?”
She shook her head.
“William, listen—”
“How long was my son inside that wall?”
“It isn't what you think.”
I looked at the empty bowl again.
Something white rested beneath it.
Paper.
I crouched and pulled it free.
It was a photograph.
A photograph of William Sterling standing beside a woman I didn't recognize.
The woman held a newborn baby.
Across her face, someone had drawn a red X.
And on the back, three words had been written.
HE KNOWS TOO MUCH.
I looked up.
Isabella had seen the photograph.
And for the first time that night, she looked genuinely terrified.
May you like
Then she whispered something that made William hold his son tighter.
“Grace shouldn't have found that.”
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