CHAPTER 6 — “The Midnight Trap… And The Woman Everyone Buried Walked Back Into The Mansion”
The clock on the hallway wall read 11:17 PM.
Forty-three minutes remained.
The words painted in blood-red across the garage wall haunted everyone.
“THE REAL HEIR MUST DIE BEFORE MIDNIGHT.”
Emma tightened her grip around the small brass key the dying lawyer had slipped into her hand.
It wasn't an ordinary key.
Engraved on its side were four tiny words:
"Greenwood Estate — Room 17."
The old butler gasped.
"I haven't heard that name in over twenty years."
He revealed that Greenwood Estate had once belonged to Henry Sterling before it was mysteriously abandoned after Amelia disappeared.
"No one has entered Room 17 since that night."
Emma, Ethan, and the butler raced through the empty streets toward the forgotten mansion.
Rain crashed against the windshield.
Lightning split the sky.
When they arrived, the gates were already open.
Someone had been there before them.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Family portraits hung crooked on the walls.
The grandfather clock had stopped at exactly 12:03 AM—the night Amelia supposedly vanished.
Emma inserted the brass key into Room 17.
The lock clicked.
The door slowly opened.
Inside was not a bedroom...
It was a hidden archive.
Shelves filled with journals, videotapes, financial records, and hundreds of photographs stretched from floor to ceiling.
In the center stood an old projector.
Beside it...
A single videotape labeled:
"PLAY ONLY IF EMMA RETURNS."
Ethan inserted the tape.
The screen flickered.
Static filled the room.
Then...
Amelia appeared.
Alive.
Her eyes were swollen from crying, but her voice was steady.
"If you're watching this, they told you I died... or disappeared."
Emma's knees nearly gave out.
Tears streamed down her face.
"Mom..."
The video continued.
"Victoria didn't act alone."
"Neither did Richard."
"There was someone above both of them."
Emma froze.
The image zoomed slightly as Amelia held up an old family photograph.
One face had been carefully scratched out.
"Never trust the person who comforts you the most."
Suddenly—
BANG!
A gunshot shattered the projector.
The room exploded into darkness.
Masked men stormed through the broken windows.
"Take the girl!"
Ethan threw himself in front of Emma as bullets tore through the wooden shelves.
The old butler pulled a hidden lever.
A secret passage opened beneath the fireplace.
"Run!"
Emma and Ethan escaped into the underground tunnel while the mansion above echoed with gunfire.
After several minutes of running, they emerged beneath an abandoned chapel.
Emma looked back toward Greenwood Estate.
Flames consumed the mansion.
Every piece of evidence...
Every journal...
Every recording...
Gone forever.
Or so they thought.
Ethan reached into his jacket.
"I grabbed one thing before the fire."
He handed Emma a scorched photograph.
Half of it had burned away.
But the surviving half showed Amelia standing beside...
Victoria. Richard. Henry Sterling.
And one more person.
A smiling little girl wearing a white dress.
Emma stared at the child's face.
Her heart stopped.
"That's impossible..."
The little girl wasn't Emma.
It wasn't anyone in the Sterling family.
The old butler looked at the photograph, then whispered in horror:
"There was never one missing heir..."
May you like
"...There were two."
To Be Continued…
