Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Died in My House
The photograph should have meant nothing to me.
Instead, the second I looked at Emily Morgan’s face, something cold moved through my chest.
She was standing on my balcony.
Not a similar balcony.
Mine.
The same white railing. The same stone planter. The same crack near the French doors that Ethan had promised to repair after we moved in.
Detective Mason watched my reaction.
“Emily Carter Morgan,” he said quietly. “Twenty-nine years old. Married Ethan six years ago.”
I stared at him.
“Ethan told me he’d never been married.”
“He lied.”
The hospital suddenly felt too small.
Margaret was gone now, handcuffed and screaming down the hallway, but I could still feel the pillow against my face.
“How did Emily die?”
Mason didn’t answer immediately.
That frightened me more than any answer could have.
Finally, he opened the folder.
“Officially? Carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“What?”
“She was found unconscious in that house during renovations. Ethan said a contractor accidentally disconnected part of the ventilation system.”
My fingers went numb inside the cast.
“But you don’t believe that.”
“We didn’t have a reason not to.”
“Until me.”
Mason nodded.
He slid a second photograph onto the blanket.
It showed workers tearing open a wall in my downstairs study.
Inside the cavity were several plastic-wrapped bundles.
“What is that?”
“Documents. Jewelry. Cash. Two passports belonging to people we’re still identifying.”
My heartbeat accelerated.
“And Emily?”
Mason looked toward the locked door.
“She contacted police three days before she died.”
I stopped breathing.
“She said she had found something behind a wall. Something her husband and mother-in-law were desperate to recover.”
My eyes filled with tears I refused to let fall.
“What did she find?”
Mason removed one final item from the folder.
A photocopy of a handwritten note.
Emily’s handwriting.
If something happens to me, look behind the nursery wall.
My blood turned cold.
“We don’t have a nursery,” I whispered.
Mason stared at me.
“You did.”
He leaned closer.
“Before you moved into that house, Claire, there was a nursery upstairs.”
My throat tightened.
“For whose baby?”
Mason hesitated.
May you like
Then he said the words that changed everything.
“Emily was seven months pregnant when she died.”
