Chapter 2 - The Ghost in the ArchivesMidnight at the Carter estate. While the rest of the household slept, Ethan sat in the subterranean private archive room, surrounded by generations of classified ledgers, sealed corporate files, and forgotten family photo albums.
The locket sat on his desk under the green glow of a desk lamp. Using a precision micro-screwdriver, Ethan carefully popped open the rusted back panel of the silver casing.
Inside was a tiny, faded photograph and a microscopic engraving.
The photograph showed a young woman with striking, familiar eyes standing in front of the Carter family's old summer estate in Maine. The engraving read: E.C. – 1985.
Ethan’s breath caught in his throat. E.C.
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Elena Carter. His father's younger sister, who had officially died in a tragic yachting accident thirty-five years ago—long before Ethan was even born. Except, according to the official coroner's report he had pulled an hour earlier, her body had never been recovered.
And her name had been completely scrubbed from every family tree by order of Margaret Carter herself.
