Chapter 8 - The Locked Study.
Detective Ortiz called the mansion immediately.
Marcus Reed was gone by the time officers reached the west office.
His jacket remained over the back of a chair.
His phone sat charging on a desk.
A service door leading toward the gardens stood open.
The second disappearance changed the investigation.
Celeste was no longer simply a frightened woman running from a terrible secret.
There was now evidence of coordination.
Maya stayed at the hospital until Noah finally fell asleep near dawn.
Jonathan remained outside the room.
Neither of them trusted him enough to let him sit beside the boy alone.
He seemed to understand.
At six in the morning, Detective Ortiz asked Maya to return to the mansion and identify which rooms Celeste regularly used.
The gala had been abandoned hours earlier.
White roses still towered over the ballroom tables.
Half-full glasses of champagne stood beside untouched desserts.
The mansion looked like a party frozen at the exact moment everyone learned what the host had been hiding.
Maya led Ortiz upstairs.
Celeste's dressing room had already been searched.
Behind a row of decorative books, officers had found an empty space exactly where Noah said the blue bottle had been hidden.
The bottle itself was gone.
“Someone removed it before we secured the room,” Ortiz said.
“Marcus?”
“Maybe.”
Maya looked toward the adjoining bedroom.
Celeste had always forbidden staff from cleaning one particular room at the end of the private hall.
She called it Jonathan's old study.
The door had been locked for almost two years.
Maya pointed to it.
“That room.”
Ortiz tried the handle.
Locked.
An officer arrived with tools.
Thirty seconds later, the door opened.
Dust did not cover the room as Maya expected.
The desk was clean.
A printer light glowed in the corner.
Three monitors sat behind a leather chair.
Someone had been working there recently.
Ortiz put on gloves.
“Don't touch anything.”
Maya stepped inside carefully.
The room smelled faintly of cedar and printer toner.
On the wall was an old photograph of Evelyn, Jonathan, and Noah at the beach.
Someone had turned it facedown.
Maya stared at it until Ortiz called her name.
A cabinet beside the desk contained folders arranged by date.
Most were medical.
NOAH - BEHAVIORAL INCIDENTS.
NOAH - AGGRESSION.
NOAH - CONFABULATION.
Maya opened her mouth in disbelief.
“He wasn't aggressive.”
Ortiz photographed the labels.
“We'll determine who wrote them.”
A computer technician powered one monitor through a forensic device.
The screen displayed a login window.
Then the technician noticed a sticky note underneath the desk.
Four digits were written on it.
0417.
Maya recognized the date instantly.
“Evelyn's birthday.”
The technician entered it.
The computer unlocked.
Folders filled the screen.
One was labeled VALE.
Another was labeled TRANSFER.
A third was labeled JH VIDEO.
Ortiz looked at Maya.
“JH.”
“Jonathan Hawthorne.”
The technician opened the folder.
Inside were dozens of video files.
One thumbnail showed Jonathan sitting at the breakfast table.
Another showed Celeste across from him.
The timestamp was six weeks earlier.
The technician clicked play.
Jonathan's recorded voice filled the room.
“Do whatever the doctor recommends.”
The exact sentence Noah had been forced to watch.
May you like
Then the video continued.
And everyone in the room realized the clip Noah had seen had been deliberately cut short.
