Chapter 3 - The Apartment with No Family Pictures
Claire’s apartment door hung from one hinge.
Broken glass covered the living room floor.
Sophie’s drawings had been ripped from the refrigerator.
Kitchen cabinets stood open.
The couch had been cut apart.
Mattress stuffing covered the bedroom.
Claire entered slowly with Sophie behind her.
Adrian’s security team had already searched the apartment.
Luca Moretti, Adrian’s head of security, stood beside the window.
“No one is inside.”
Claire looked toward the empty wall above the sofa.
A dozen family photographs had been there.
Her mother holding Claire as a baby.
Her father teaching Claire to ride a bicycle.
Sophie sleeping on Catherine’s chest.
Every photograph containing Catherine was gone.
Pictures of Claire and Sophie had been left behind.
“They knew exactly what they wanted.”
Adrian stood near the doorway.
“Was anything else taken?”
Claire opened the small cabinet beneath her desk.
A wooden box was missing.
“My mother’s letters.”
“What letters?”
“She wrote them during the last year of her life.”
“Did they mention the Ashfords?”
“She never used the name.”
“What did she write?”
Claire looked at the destroyed room.
“She kept apologizing.”
“For what?”
“For not telling me where I came from.”
Sophie picked up a torn drawing.
A red crayon line had been dragged across her mother’s face.
“Why did they break my pictures?”
Claire crouched beside her.
“Because some adults are afraid of things they do not understand.”
“Are they afraid of Grandma?”
Claire glanced at Adrian.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That is what we are going to find out.”
Luca approached with a clear evidence bag.
“We found this under the window.”
Inside was a gold cuff link shaped like a lion.
Adrian recognized it.
“Malcolm Graves wears these.”
Claire stared.
“Your family lawyer broke into my apartment?”
“Or someone wants us to believe he did.”
Claire looked toward the hallway.
Her neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, stood beside a police officer.
The seventy-year-old woman held an ice pack against her temple.
Claire rushed to her.
“What happened?”
Mrs. Alvarez forced a smile.
“I heard someone inside.”
“I opened your door.”
“A man pushed past me.”
“Did you see his face?”
“He wore a gray suit.”
“Silver hair.”
“Expensive shoes.”
Adrian and Claire exchanged a look.
Malcolm.
The police officer cleared his throat.
“Mrs. Alvarez may have been confused.”
The elderly woman glared at him.
“I am old.”
“I am not blind.”
The officer looked uncomfortable.
Claire took her hand.
“I am sorry.”
“You did not push me.”
“I brought this to your home.”
Mrs. Alvarez looked at Sophie.
“No.”
“Someone brought it to your family long before tonight.”
She reached into her robe pocket.
“I found this near the stairs.”
She handed Claire a small brass key.
A faded number was stamped across it.
214.
Claire recognized the red thread tied through the top.
Her mother used to tie red thread around important keys.
Adrian examined it.
“Do you know what it opens?”
“No.”
Mrs. Alvarez looked toward the broken apartment.
“The man dropped it.”
Luca sealed the key in an evidence bag.
A police detective entered.
Nolan Pierce.
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“You again.”
Pierce looked around.
“Burglary falls under my unit.”
“Does everything involving Victoria Ashford fall under your unit?”
Pierce smiled.
“Careful.”
Adrian stepped beside Claire.
“She asked a reasonable question.”
Pierce’s smile weakened.
“You should not interfere with police work, Mr. Ashford.”
“You arrested an innocent woman based on evidence my mother planted.”
“The arresting officers acted on available information.”
“Information provided by you.”
Pierce looked toward Claire.
“Your apartment was not forced from outside.”
“The lock was opened with a key.”
“That means someone close to you entered.”
Claire pointed toward the broken door.
“Someone close to me does not need to destroy the door while leaving.”
Pierce ignored her.
“Do you have enemies?”
“One started touching my daughter in a ballroom.”
Pierce took out his notebook.
“Anyone else?”
Claire looked at Adrian.
“His family attorney may have pushed my neighbor.”
Pierce wrote nothing.
“That is a serious accusation.”
“It is also what she saw.”
Pierce looked at Mrs. Alvarez.
“Memory becomes unreliable after head trauma.”
Mrs. Alvarez removed the ice pack.
“My memory is reliable enough to remember you visiting Catherine Bennett before the fire.”
The room became completely silent.
Claire turned toward her.
“What did you say?”
Mrs. Alvarez’s face changed.
“You never knew?”
“Knew what?”
“Detective Pierce came here twice.”
“Your mother would not let him inside.”
Pierce closed his notebook.
“That was thirty years ago.”
Claire stared at him.
“You knew my mother.”
“I investigated the fire.”
“You were not assigned to that case.”
“How would you know?”
“I read the report.”
“Different name.”
Pierce’s jaw tightened.
Adrian looked at Luca.
“Find the original case assignment.”
Pierce stepped toward him.
“You do not have authority to access sealed records.”
Adrian met his stare.
“I own the company that digitized them.”
Pierce’s face hardened.
Claire moved closer.
“What did my mother tell you?”
“She was frightened.”
“Of whom?”
“She would not say.”
“Did she say Victoria’s name?”
Pierce looked toward the police officer.
“We are done here.”
Claire blocked his path.
“No.”
Pierce lowered his voice.
“Move.”
“My daughter was attacked.”
“My apartment was destroyed.”
“My mother’s photographs were stolen.”
“You knew her before she died.”
“You are not leaving until you tell me why.”
Pierce leaned close enough for her to smell coffee on his breath.
“Your mother survived longer because she stayed quiet.”
Claire’s blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
Adrian stepped forward.
Pierce moved away.
“It means curiosity can be dangerous.”
He walked toward the door.
Luca stopped him.
“Detective.”
Pierce looked down at Luca’s hand on the frame.
“Move.”
Luca held up his phone.
“The original fire report lists Patrol Officer Nolan Pierce as first responder.”
Pierce said nothing.
Luca continued.
“The dispatch log shows you arrived nineteen minutes before the fire was reported.”
Claire felt the room shift.
“How did you know there was a fire?”
Pierce’s eyes moved toward her.
For the first time, his confidence slipped.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
Victoria Ashford’s name flashed across it.
Claire saw it.
So did Adrian.
Pierce declined the call.
Adrian smiled without humor.
“That answers one question.”
Pierce pushed past Luca.
“You are making a mistake.”
Claire followed him into the hallway.
“Was my mother alive when you arrived?”
Pierce stopped at the stairs.
His shoulders became rigid.
He did not turn around.
“She was not the woman they found inside.”
Then he continued down the stairs.
Claire could not move.
Sophie slipped her hand into Claire’s.
“Mommy?”
Claire looked at Adrian.
“What did he mean?”
Adrian’s face was unreadable.
“The official report said Catherine Bennett died in the fire.”
Claire held the brass key.
“What if she didn’t?”
Luca entered from the apartment.
He carried a small pink stuffed rabbit.
“Sophie, is this yours?”
She nodded.
“It was under my bed.”
“There is something inside it.”
Claire opened a seam along the rabbit’s back.
Her mother had repaired that seam years earlier.
Inside the stuffing was a folded piece of paper.
The handwriting belonged to Catherine.
Claire unfolded it.
CLAIRE,
IF ELEANOR EVER FINDS YOU, USE KEY 214.
DO NOT LET VICTORIA TAKE SOPHIE.
SHE WILL SEE THE BIRTHMARK.
Claire stared at the last line.
Sophie had a crescent-shaped birthmark beneath her left shoulder.
The same mark Eleanor had described on Catherine.
The apartment lights went out.
A gunshot cracked through the stairwell.
Luca pulled Claire and Sophie to the floor.
Adrian turned toward the door.
Mrs. Alvarez screamed.
Someone ran down the dark hallway.
May you like
Then a man’s voice called from the stairs.
“Give us the key, and the child goes home alive.”
