Chapter 11 - THE HIDDEN ROOM
The night stretched on endlessly. Detective Miller arranged for two officers to remain outside the house, with orders to admit no one but her. Elena stayed with us, shaken but steady. I sat in the nursery, watching over Emma and Olivia, my mind racing through every detail of what had happened.
Adrian had been taken. Hidden somewhere. Sterling had covered his tracks perfectly. There was no proof he had ever been at the estate. No proof he had taken Adrian. No proof of anything but my word—and Sterling was already planting evidence to make sure my word meant nothing.
At dawn, Olivia woke up. She found me sitting beside Emma’s crib, exhausted and red-eyed.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked immediately.
I pulled her into a hug. “He’s… gone away for a little while. But Detective Miller and I are trying to find him.”
Olivia pulled back, searching my face. “Sterling took him, didn’t he?”
I hesitated. “We think so. But we don’t have proof yet.”
Olivia was quiet for a moment. Then she walked to her desk and pulled out a notebook. She flipped through pages filled with notes, dates, times, and names.
“I’ve been keeping track of everything,” she said. “Every time Vanessa called Sterling. Every time she met someone. Every time she lied.”
She showed me the pages. Meticulous. Detailed. Times when Vanessa had left the house and returned hours later. Numbers she had called repeatedly. A list of medications and strange substances she had ordered online, delivered to a PO box.
“Olivia,” I said, stunned. “This is… incredible.”
“I knew something was wrong,” she said simply. “I just didn’t know how to prove it.”
I looked at the list of substances. Most were unfamiliar. But one name stood out—something used to sedate patients, easily hidden, nearly impossible to detect in standard tests.
“This is what she put in the bottle,” I said slowly. “That’s why it came back clean. They weren’t looking for the right thing.”
Olivia nodded. “And look at the addresses.” She pointed to a street on the edge of town. “Most of the deliveries went here. And Vanessa drove here twice last week. Late at night.”
I grabbed my phone and showed the address to Detective Miller. She called me back within minutes, her voice tight with urgency.
“Clara,” she said. “That address belongs to a property owned by… Judge Robert Sterling.”
My heart hammered. “Is Adrian there?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But I’m sending a team immediately. Stay where you are. Keep the girls inside.”
I ended the call and paced the nursery. If Sterling had hidden Adrian anywhere… it would be there. A property in his own name. Somewhere no one would think to look. Somewhere he could keep him quiet.
Hours passed. Every minute felt like an eternity. Then my phone rang. Detective Miller.
“We found it,” she said. “An old safe room in the basement. Soundproofed. Locked from the outside.”
“And?” I gripped the phone.
“There’s no one inside,” she said. “But… there are signs someone was there recently. A half-eaten meal. A blanket. A chair. And… something else.”
“What?”
“Carvings on the wall,” she said quietly. “Adrian’s initials. And a date. Today’s date.”
My breath caught. “So he was there.”
“Very recently,” she said. “And the window was left unlocked. From the inside.”
I froze. “Adrian left?”
“Or someone helped him escape,” she said. “Clara… there’s blood on the floor. Not much. But enough to tell us he was hurt.”
My knees gave out. I sank onto the edge of the bed.
“Is he alive?” I whispered.
“We don’t know,” she said honestly. “But he left something. Carved beneath his initials. Two letters.”
“What letters?”
“S.O.”
May you like
I frowned. “Who is S.O.?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But whoever it is… Adrian trusted them enough to carve their initials into the wall before he left.”
