Chapter 4 - The Sealed Door
The west wing of the Cross estate was shrouded in perpetual shadow.
The heavy mahogany double doors leading into it had been fitted with a digital keypad lock and a steel deadbolt, bolted from the outside. No sunlight reached this corridor; the velvet drapes over the tall arched windows were permanently drawn shut.
Nathaniel stood before the doors with Mrs. Ashcroft and Ruby standing a few paces behind him.
“Who had the code?” Nathaniel’s voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the lethal weight of a loaded gun.
“Only myself and the security detail,” Mrs. Ashcroft said, her voice trembling slightly. “No one else knows the combination.”
Nathaniel punched a six-digit code into the keypad.
Bip-bip-bip-bip-bip-bip.
The red light flickered green.
He turned the deadbolt with a loud, metallic clack and pushed the doors open.
The air inside the west wing smelled of old perfume, decaying roses, and something sharp and metallic—bleach mixed with iron. It was a suite fit for a queen: silk wallpaper, crystal chandeliers covered in dust sheets, and white carpets that hadn't been vacuumed in two years.
Everything was exactly as it had been the night Eleanor Cross died.
Except for one thing.
The connecting door leading to the master nursery—the door that was supposed to be welded shut with steel plates—was standing open by three inches.
Nathaniel walked slowly down the long hallway, his boots sinking into the thick carpet. He pushed the nursery door wide open.
Ruby and Mrs. Ashcroft followed closely behind.
The room inside was dark, illuminated only by the faint gray light filtering through a crack in the drapes.
In the center of the room stood a crib with a white lace canopy.
And sitting on the rocking chair beside it was a woman.
She wore a bloodstained cream silk dress that was torn at the hem. Her dark hair fell in tangled wet strands over her shoulders, shadowing her face. In her lap, she held a porcelain doll with its head missing.
She was humming.
The exact same lullaby Ruby had heard through the wall the night before.
“Hush now, little bird, don't you make a sound…”
Mrs. Ashcroft let out a sharp, choked gasp and stepped back into the hallway, crossing herself frantically.
Nathaniel stopped dead in his tracks.
The blood seemed to drain from his face entirely. He didn't drop his keys, he didn't draw a weapon; he stood there like a man who was watching a ghost walk out of a grave.
“Eleanor,” he breathed.
The woman in the rocking chair slowly lifted her head.
Her face was pale as chalk, her eyes sunken and dark-circled, but the features were unmistakable. It was Eleanor Cross.
The woman the police report said died in a fiery car crash on Route 15.
The woman whose funeral Nathaniel had attended in a black suit while holding a five-year-old boy who wouldn't cry.
“You left the door unlocked, Nate,” Eleanor said. Her voice was thin, raspy, like dry leaves scraping across concrete. “The little birds keep trying to fly away. But they always come back to the cage.”
Ruby stared from Eleanor to Nathaniel, her mind spinning wildly as the pieces of the puzzle violently slammed together.
The official report. The robbery gone wrong. The sealed west wing. The nannies who fled in terror.
Eleanor wasn't dead.
She had never died in a car crash.
Nathaniel had locked her away.
Or... had she locked herself away?
Before Ruby could process the horrifying implication, a small sound came from the doorway behind them.
Ollie stood in the threshold of the west wing.
He had wandered up from the conservatory, his small bare feet making no sound on the carpet. He was staring at the woman in the rocking chair with eyes wide and empty of surprise, as if he had seen this ghost a thousand times before.
“Mommy?” Ruby whispered, looking down at the boy.
Ollie didn't answer. He looked up at his father—at the powerful billionaire who owned half of New York, the man who terrified boardroom executives and prosecutors.
Nathaniel looked down at his son, and for the first time since Ruby had met him, the billionaire looked utterly, hopelessly defeated.
“Don't let her touch him,” Eleanor whispered, standing up from the rocking chair with a sudden, unnatural speed. Her eyes locked onto Ollie, burning with a frantic, unhinged light. “He remembers, Nate! He was in the back seat! He saw what I did to the others! He remembers the blood on the highway!”
Nathaniel moved with terrifying speed.
Before Eleanor could take another step toward the boy, Nathaniel caught her by the arms, pinning her against his chest.
“It’s over, Ellie,” Nathaniel said, his voice cracking with a raw, agonizing grief that had been buried for two years. “You’re coming back inside.”
“No!” Eleanor screamed, thrashing against him with the surprising strength of a cornered animal. “He has to know! The boy has to know what his mother is! You can't hide it behind these walls forever!”
She bit down hard on Nathaniel’s forearm.
A dark stain of blood blossomed through his white shirt sleeve.
Nathaniel didn't flinch. He didn't yell. He simply wrapped his arms tighter around her, lifting her bodily off the floor as she screamed curses and wept, carrying her back into the dark interior of the suite.
May you like
He looked over his shoulder at Ruby, his face twisted in pain.
“Take Ollie out of here,” Nathaniel ordered, his voice shaking. “Now.”
