Chapter 1 - The Child Beside the Silver Tray
Victor Hale noticed the little girl because nobody else seemed willing to.
The dining room glittered with gold moldings, chandeliers, polished marble, and enough food to feed fifty people. Silver trays covered the formal table. Champagne moved freely between guests. A string quartet played somewhere beyond the archway.
Yet beside one serving tray, a barefoot four-year-old girl was kneeling on the marble floor and stuffing bread into her mouth with both hands.
Victor stopped.
Her beige dress was dirty and torn near the hem. Her dark hair hung unevenly around a tear-streaked face. She ate too quickly, barely chewing.
Victor approached.
The girl noticed his shoes.
She slowly looked up.
“I was so hungry…”
Something inside Victor went cold.
He recognized her. Lily. Daniel’s daughter.
Victor had returned to the Hale estate only that afternoon after nearly six months overseas handling the sale of one of the family’s manufacturing divisions. Daniel’s messages had always described Lily as healthy, difficult, “going through a phase.”
This was not a phase.
Victor crouched.
“When did you last eat?”
Lily immediately looked across the room.
Daniel Hale stood near the dining table in a navy suit.
The moment their eyes met, Daniel’s face tightened.
Lily grabbed Victor’s sleeve.
“He said I wasn’t allowed to eat.”
The room seemed to disappear around him.
Victor rose.
Daniel backed away.
“Victor, wait.”
Victor crossed the room.
“Explain.”
“She’s confused.”
Victor seized Daniel’s jacket and drove him backward across the dining table. Plates and silver trays scattered as the center of the table gave way beneath him.
Victor stopped there.
He did not strike again.
Behind him, Lily suddenly reached into her dress pocket.
“I have something.”
She produced a small gold key.
“He made me hide this.”
Victor took it.
The Hale family crest was engraved into its head.
He hadn't seen a key like it in decades.
Across the room, Eleanor saw it.
Her champagne glass slipped from her hand.
Victor turned key over.
Eleanor whispered:
“No…”
Victor crossed toward her.
“You know something, don't you?”
Then Lily pointed upstairs.
Everyone fell silent.
A faint sound drifted down.
A human voice.
Weak.
Then another.
“Help…”
Victor released Eleanor.
At the end of the upstairs hallway, an old door slowly shifted open several inches.
Eleanor grabbed Victor’s arm.
“Don't go up there.”
Victor stared at her.
“Why?”
May you like
Her answer frightened him more than the voice.
“Because Room 17 hasn't been opened since your wife disappeared.”
