Chapter 1 - The Hair in the Wall
“Dad… Mommy is still inside that wall.”
Eight-year-old Sophie Mercer pointed across the hallway with a shaking hand.
Her father didn’t understand what she meant.
Not at first.
Daniel Mercer had just stormed through the front doors of his own mansion with two police officers behind him. His jacket was half-buttoned, rainwater dripping from his hair, and his heart was still hammering from the phone call that had dragged him out of a board meeting twenty minutes earlier.
His twelve-year-old son, Ethan, was on the floor.
Blood ran from the corner of the boy’s mouth.
His younger sister crouched beside him, crying.
And standing over both children was Daniel’s wife, Vanessa.
“What happened?” Daniel shouted.
Vanessa spun toward him.
Her face changed instantly.
The hard expression disappeared.
“Daniel, thank God.”
She rushed toward him.
He stepped around her.
“Ethan?”
“I’m okay.”
The boy tried to stand.
His knees buckled.
Daniel caught him.
Officer Grant moved between Vanessa and the children.
“What happened here?”
Vanessa pressed one hand to her chest.
“He attacked me.”
Ethan stared at her.
“You liar.”
“Ethan,” Daniel said carefully.
“She hit Sophie.”
Vanessa’s eyes sharpened.
“That is not what happened.”
“She hit her because Sophie wouldn’t stop talking about Mom.”
Silence dropped over the hallway.
Daniel looked at his daughter.
Sophie’s face was wet with tears.
A red mark showed across her cheek.
Daniel’s stomach turned.
“Vanessa?”
“She was having another episode,” Vanessa said quickly. “You know how she gets. She started screaming about Claire again.”
Claire.
Daniel’s first wife.
The mother of his children.
The woman who had vanished four years earlier.
No body.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Vanessa lowered her voice.
“I tried to calm Sophie down. Ethan became aggressive.”
Ethan wiped blood from his lip.
“You grabbed her.”
“I was protecting myself.”
“You threw me into the table.”
Daniel looked at the broken side table.
Then at Ethan’s swollen cheek.
Something cold settled into his chest.
Officer Grant stepped closer to Vanessa.
“Ma’am, please stay where you are.”
Vanessa laughed nervously.
“This is insane.”
Then Sophie whispered again.
“Dad.”
Daniel turned.
She wasn’t looking at Vanessa anymore.
She was staring toward the far end of the hallway.
At the old floral wallpaper.
The wallpaper had been there since Daniel bought the mansion eleven years earlier.
Cream background.
Faded blue flowers.
Claire had hated it.
She had once joked that it looked like something from a haunted hotel.
Sophie lifted one finger.
“There.”
Daniel followed her gaze.
Near the baseboard, beneath a brass wall sconce, the wallpaper had been torn.
Only an inch.
Maybe less.
Something pale stuck through it.
Daniel walked closer.
His breathing slowed.
He crouched.
At first, he thought it was thread.
Then he touched it.
Soft.
Fine.
Human hair.
Blonde hair.
Daniel froze.
Claire had been blonde.
Behind him, Vanessa spoke.
“It’s probably from insulation.”
Daniel turned slowly.
Vanessa had gone pale.
Ethan saw it too.
“You know what it is.”
“No.”
“You know.”
Vanessa stepped backward.
Officer Grant blocked her.
Daniel grabbed the torn edge of the wallpaper.
“Dad,” Sophie whispered.
He pulled.
The paper ripped downward.
Underneath was old plaster.
Except one section sounded hollow when Daniel struck it with his fist.
Once.
Twice.
Hollow.
His heart began pounding again.
“Get me something,” he said.
“Daniel,” Vanessa warned.
He ignored her.
Officer Grant picked up a heavy fireplace tool from a nearby stand.
Daniel took it.
Vanessa suddenly lunged forward.
“No!”
The officer grabbed her arm.
Daniel stared at her.
That single word told him everything.
He swung the iron tool.
The plaster cracked.
Dust burst into the hallway.
Sophie screamed.
Daniel hit it again.
A piece of wall collapsed inward.
Darkness waited behind it.
And from inside that darkness came the unmistakable smell of something that had been sealed away for years.
Officer Grant pulled Daniel back.
“Sir.”
Daniel couldn’t move.
Because behind the broken plaster, buried in the narrow space between the walls, he could see the edge of a woman’s blue coat.
Claire’s blue coat.
The one she had been wearing the night she disappeared.
May you like
Then Ethan whispered the words that made Daniel’s blood turn cold.
“That’s not the only wall she opened.”
