Chapter 4 - The Red Room
The red room was not red.
Anna discovered that before midnight.
Noah finally told her where it was.
Not willingly.
He slipped another note beneath her bedroom door.
BASEMENT. WINE CELLAR. THIRD SHELF.
DON’T LET DAD SEE YOU.
Anna should have ignored it.
Instead, she waited until the mansion became quiet.
The wine cellar occupied the oldest section of the house.
Stone walls.
Dark oak racks.
She counted three shelves.
Behind the third was a brass latch.
The rack swung outward.
A narrow room waited behind it.
Its walls were white.
Its contents were not.
Red folders.
Hundreds.
Each labeled with a name.
Anna found hers.
ANNA REYES.
Inside:
Birth certificate.
School records.
Employment history.
Photographs.
Her application to the Mercer household.
Even a photograph of Anna attending her mother’s funeral twelve years earlier.
Someone had been documenting her long before she came here.
Another folder:
SOFIA REYES.
Anna opened it with shaking hands.
Her mother had worked for the Mercer family.
Not Ethan.
Claire.
Years before Noah was born.
That was impossible.
Sofia had told Anna she worked for a retired couple in Virginia.
Apparently another lie.
Payroll records showed Claire Mercer paid Sofia privately for eleven months.
Position:
DOMESTIC ASSISTANT.
Additional designation:
WITNESS SUPPORT.
Witness to what?
Anna turned pages.
Photographs of bank documents.
A mansion she did not recognize.
Eleanor entering a black vehicle.
Claire meeting Sofia.
Then a handwritten statement from Sofia:
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME, DO NOT LET THEM TAKE ANNA.
Anna read it again.
Them.
Not Eleanor.
Not Claire.
Them.
A sound came behind her.
Anna turned.
Noah stood in the doorway.
Barefoot.
Pajamas.
“You found it.”
Anna rushed to him.
“You shouldn’t be down here.”
“Neither should you.”
For a moment he sounded far older than seven.
Then he was simply Noah again.
Frightened.
Small.
Anna crouched.
“Why did you blame me?”
His eyes filled immediately.
“I can’t tell.”
“Did Eleanor threaten you?”
No answer.
“Did someone tell you to say it?”
Noah shook his head.
That surprised her.
“You decided yourself?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
His lips trembled.
“If I tell you, it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?”
He looked toward the folders.
“The promise.”
“What promise?”
Noah began crying.
Anna reached for him.
He stepped backward.
“No.”
“Noah—”
“You have to hate me.”
Anna froze.
“What?”
“You have to.”
“I could never hate you.”
His face crumpled.
“That’s bad.”
Before Anna could ask why, footsteps sounded beyond the wine cellar.
Noah panicked.
“Hide.”
“Who?”
“Please!”
Anna slipped behind the open shelf.
Noah remained outside.
Someone entered.
Ethan.
Anna almost stepped out.
Then Noah spoke.
“Dad?”
“What are you doing down here?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Ethan crouched.
“You can always come to me.”
Noah nodded.
Ethan noticed the red room.
His expression changed.
“Who opened that?”
Noah looked directly toward Anna’s hiding place.
Then lied.
“Eleanor.”
Anna stared through the narrow gap.
Again.
No hesitation.
No trembling voice.
A deliberate accusation.
Ethan took Noah upstairs.
Anna waited.
Then returned to the folder.
She understood something important now.
Noah was not merely protecting Eleanor.
He was systematically redirecting blame.
First toward Anna.
Now toward Eleanor.
Why?
She searched his folder.
NOAH MERCER.
Most pages were ordinary.
Medical history.
School.
Photographs.
Then she found a behavioral evaluation conducted three months earlier.
No diagnosis.
Instead, one handwritten observation:
N. understands the “false target” protocol exceptionally well.
Anna turned the page.
A typed instruction:
WHEN OBSERVATION IS CONFIRMED, NEVER IDENTIFY THE PERSON YOU ARE PROTECTING.
IDENTIFY THE PERSON WHO CAN SURVIVE THE ACCUSATION.
Anna stopped.
May you like
Noah had not blamed her because he believed she hurt him.
He had chosen her because he believed she could survive being blamed.
