Chapter 21 - THE DRAWING The metallic click came from a small brass mechanism hidden inside the frame.
I stared at it.
My father's architectural drawing had always hung above the fireplace.
I had looked at it thousands of times.
I knew every line.
Every measurement.
Every handwritten note.
Or so I had thought.
Reyes arrived twenty minutes later.
She examined the frame without touching it.
“Your father designed this?”
“Yes.”
“And you never noticed the compartment?”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“Then someone didn't want you to.”
We carefully removed the backing.
A narrow cavity appeared.
Inside was a black envelope.
No name.
No date.
Only one word:
CLAIRE.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
My father stood beside a woman I had never seen before.
But behind them was a building.
The Bennett House.
Not the one we had just built.
An older version.
A blueprint from sixteen years ago.
My father had been planning it before his death.
At the bottom of the photograph, he had written:
SHE KNOWS WHY I DIED.
“Who is she?” Reyes asked.
I turned the photograph over.
On the back was an address.
A small coastal town north of San Francisco.
And beneath it:
DO NOT GO ALONE.
I looked at Reyes.
She sighed.
“You know what you're going to say.”
“Yes.”
“Then say it.”
“I have to go.”
She stared at me.
“No.”
“Reyes—”
“No. Not this time.”
She picked up her phone.
“Because whoever sent this knows exactly how you think.”
Then her expression changed.
She looked at the photograph again.
“Claire…”
“What?”
“That woman.”
“Who is she?”
Reyes zoomed in on the image.
“I've seen her before.”
My heart stopped.
May you like
“Where?”
“In the Caldwell files.”
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