Chapter 1 - THE WALL THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE OPENED
Richard Sterling’s fiftieth birthday celebration at his Charleston estate was meant to show the world that his family had finally healed.
Instead, his ten-year-old son disappeared.
Leo had never recovered from losing his mother, Fiona, four years earlier. He feared closed doors, slept with a hallway light on, and had recently become increasingly frightened of Richard’s new wife, Helena.
While nearly a hundred guests and police searched the grounds, longtime nanny Rose Whitaker found Leo trapped inside a hidden service passage behind Fiona’s portrait.
He was barefoot, dusty, terrified—and his clean feet proved Helena’s claim that he had wandered outside in the rain was false.
Leo finally revealed that Helena had lured him into the passage by claiming Fiona had hidden a birthday present there.
Then she closed the wall behind him.
Before being found, Leo discovered an antique brass phonograph needle case engraved with Fiona’s initial. Inside was microfilm showing forged documents transferring Sterling properties to Halcyon Trust—a company controlled by Helena. Several documents bore Fiona’s signature months after her death.
Leo said there had been a second gold case hidden behind loose bricks.
When Richard and Rose returned, it was gone.
A red velvet thread pointed suspiciously toward Richard’s younger brother, Thomas, who had also vanished.
Then Fiona appeared on every ballroom television in an old recording, warning Richard that someone had been moving money through Halcyon Trust.
The recording was interrupted by a live image of Thomas somewhere inside the estate.
He warned Richard not to let Helena leave.
Then he revealed something worse.
Fiona had discovered what happened inside the Sterling mansion the night Leo was born.
Behind Thomas stood an unidentified figure wearing Fiona’s ring.
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The screen went dark.
And somewhere inside the mansion, someone began playing Fiona’s favorite song on the piano.
