Chapter 8 - Calloway HouseCalloway House stood behind iron gates at the end of a road lined with oak trees.
It was not a mansion in the cold, polished way of the Bennett house. It was larger, older, softer somehow, with ivy climbing the stone walls and wide windows that caught the morning light.
The place looked asleep.
Not abandoned.
Waiting.
Josephine parked in the circular driveway but did not turn off the engine right away.
“You don’t have to go in today,” she said.
I looked at the house.
For twenty-two years, Richard had lived ten miles from this place and never mentioned it.
He had driven past the road to my real home thousands of times.
Maybe with me in the back seat.
Maybe while I stared out the window and wondered why he hated me.
“I want to go in,” I said.
Detective Cole had arranged for two officers to meet us. A locksmith came too, because Josephine’s old key only opened the gate, not the front door.
While he worked, I walked to the porch.
There was a brass plate beside the door.
CALLOWAY
I touched the letters.
My letters.
The lock clicked.
The door opened.
Air rushed out, stale with dust and cedar and time.
Josephine entered first, then stopped.
Her hand went to her mouth.
“Oh, Laura,” she whispered.
White sheets covered the furniture. Dust floated in the sunlight. A grand staircase curved up to the second floor. On the wall above it hung a portrait of a couple standing in a garden.
Andrew and Laura Calloway.
My parents.
Not photographs in a box.
Not signatures on documents.
Full-sized.
Living color.
Laura wore a blue dress. Andrew stood beside her with one hand resting protectively near her waist. He was tall, dark-haired, smiling like he had just told a joke.
I walked closer.
My father’s face—Richard’s face—had always felt like a wall.
Andrew’s felt like an invitation.
“You have his eyes,” Josephine said.
I did not realize I was crying until a tear hit my graduation gown.
I was still wearing it.
I had not changed since yesterday.
The navy fabric was wrinkled now. The tassel was tangled. The red mark on my cheek had faded into a bruise.
I looked like a girl who had walked out of one life and into another without stopping to pack.
Josephine led me upstairs.
“My sister’s room was this way.”
The nursery door was closed.
For some reason, that frightened me more than anything else.
Josephine opened it slowly.
The room was pale yellow.
A crib stood by the window. Stuffed animals lined a shelf. A rocking chair sat in the corner with a folded blanket over one arm.
Above the crib, painted in soft letters, was my name.
EMILY ROSE
I pressed both hands to my mouth.
The room had been waiting for a baby who never came home.
Or came home for three weeks, then vanished.
On a small table sat a music box.
I lifted the lid.
A tiny ballerina turned slowly as a delicate melody filled the room.
And suddenly, I remembered.
Not clearly.
Not logically.
Just a feeling.
Warm arms.
A woman humming.
Light moving across a yellow wall.
My knees buckled.
Josephine caught me.
“She held you here,” she whispered. “Laura loved this room.”
On the underside of the music box lid was a taped note.
Josephine carefully peeled it loose.
The paper was brittle.
Three words were written on it.
Behind the lion.
We looked at each other.
“The lion?” I asked.
Josephine frowned, thinking.
Then her face changed.
“Andrew’s study.”
We hurried downstairs.
The study smelled of leather and dust. Books lined every wall. Behind the desk hung a large painting of a lion resting beneath a stormy sky.
Detective Cole, who had joined us after clearing the lower floor, examined the painting.
“It moves,” she said.
Behind it was a wall safe.
No one knew the combination.
Then I noticed the lion’s eyes in the painting.
One green.
One gold.
I thought of the baby bracelet.
Wanted. Loved. Ours.
I entered numbers from the bracelet date.
My birthday.
The safe clicked open.
Inside were more documents.
And a video camera.
Detective Cole lifted it carefully.
“It may still have a tape.”
Josephine found an old television with a built-in player in a storage room. It took twenty minutes to make it work.
When the screen finally flickered on, Laura appeared.
Alive.
Sitting in the very study where I stood.
She was holding me.
Three-week-old me.
My real father sat beside her, his arm around her shoulders.
Laura looked scared but determined.
“If you are watching this, Emily,” she said, “then someone tried very hard to keep you from us.”
Andrew leaned forward.
“Richard, if you are watching too, know this. We made copies.”
My breath stopped.
Laura looked down at the baby in her arms.
“We love you,” she whispered. “Whatever they told you, start there. Start with that.”
The tape crackled.
Then Andrew’s face grew serious.
“Richard Bennett has been stealing from the foundation. But money is not the worst of it.”
Josephine gripped my hand.
Andrew continued.
“If anything happens to us, investigate the Northpoint project. That is where he buried the first crime.”
The screen went black.
For a long moment, nobody moved.
Then Detective Cole said quietly, “What is Northpoint?”
Josephine’s face was pale.
“A children’s hospital wing that collapsed before it opened,” she said. “Three workers died. Richard blamed Andrew.”
My blood went cold.
May you like
The story was no longer about stolen money.
It was about bodies.
