Chapter 8 - THE RED DOOR “DON’T MOVE! WHOEVER CAME IN BEHIND US KNEW WE WOULD FIND THIS PLACE.”
Daniel pushed Emily behind the basement wall while Margaret switched off her flashlight. Footsteps crossed the floor overhead, slow and deliberate. Someone descended two steps, stopped, then retreated.
Seconds later, a car engine roared outside.
They rushed upstairs, but the intruder had vanished.
On the kitchen table sat a fresh photograph.
It showed Emily entering Blackwater House less than ten minutes earlier.
Someone was watching them in real time.
Margaret suddenly remembered the message carved downstairs. Behind the property stood an old maintenance building with a faded red door. They crossed the rain-soaked yard and forced it open.
Inside were dozens of cardboard boxes.
Daniel opened the first.
Newspaper clippings about Emily filled it—from childhood school competitions to her mother’s funeral and her recent return to college. Someone had documented nearly her entire life.
Emily opened another box.
Inside were photographs of Daniel.
Margaret found something worse: recent pictures of Richard inside federal custody, speaking with a man wearing an investigator’s badge.
“He has someone inside the investigation,” Daniel said.
Then Emily discovered an envelope labeled in her mother’s handwriting:
FOR EMILY — ONLY IF RICHARD FAILS.
She opened it.
There was no letter inside.
May you like
Only a key.
And an address belonging to a storage facility downtown.
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