Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN IN THE LOCKED ROOM
Rachel Cooper had worked at the Romano estate outside Boston for only seventeen days when she discovered that the elegant old mansion was hiding something horrifying.
Sent upstairs by Adrian Romano’s fiancée, Celeste Ward, Rachel found Adrian’s seventy-four-year-old mother, Eleanor, restrained to her bed, bruised, dehydrated, and terrified. Eleanor begged Rachel not to expose what she had seen, warning that Celeste had already done something terrible to her longtime companion, Margaret.
When Celeste caught Rachel in the bedroom, she slapped her and threatened Rachel’s mother, proving she had investigated Rachel’s private life.
That evening, Adrian returned home and immediately sensed something was wrong. Rachel and Celeste gave conflicting explanations for Rachel’s bruised cheek. Later, Adrian confronted Rachel privately, and she finally admitted that his mother was afraid.
But when they went upstairs, Eleanor had vanished.
A silver security-uniform button hidden beneath the bed carried the numbers 4–17–9, leading Adrian and Rachel to storage locker 417. Inside they discovered Eleanor’s unopened medication, Margaret’s belongings, recorded warnings, and a photograph of Rachel’s mother standing beside Eleanor while holding Rachel as a newborn. Eleanor had written a chilling message on the back: if Rachel ever came to the house, Adrian had to be told the truth before Celeste discovered who she was.
Then Adrian and Rachel found Eleanor and Margaret imprisoned behind an old service door. Eleanor revealed that Celeste had been trying to force her to sign a document connected to someone Adrian’s father had hidden for decades.
That person was Rachel.
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Before Eleanor could explain why Rachel had never been expected to survive long enough to meet Adrian, Celeste disappeared from the estate.
And the mansion’s fire alarm began screaming.
