“State police.”
Cecilia looked sharply at Vanessa.
Vanessa remained on the floor, one hand braced against the doorframe.
Nora spoke into her phone, giving the address and requesting medical assistance.
Then she looked at Voss.
“Until the paramedics arrive, please keep your distance.”
“I’m her physician.”
“That appears to be something we need to discuss.”
Eleanor’s hand found Maxwell’s wrist.
Her grip was weak, but urgent.
“Don’t let him give me anything.”
He knelt beside her again.
“I won’t.”
Voss’s expression changed very slightly.
It was the first time Maxwell had ever seen the doctor look uncertain.
Elena had arrived at Blackthorn House that afternoon through the kitchen entrance.
She was twenty-six, trained as a violinist, and employed as a waitress because training did not pay the rent. The maid’s uniform belonged to a catering company that needed temporary staff.
Inside her violin case lay the brass key on its faded blue ribbon.
For twelve years she had believed it opened a room she would never see again.
At fourteen, she had lived for one summer in the cottage behind Blackthorn with her mother, Ruth, a private nurse caring for Maxwell’s dying father.
Eleanor heard Elena practicing through an open window.
Instead of asking her to stop, she brought over a music stand.
Lessons followed. Then borrowed sheet music. Then afternoons in the upstairs room, where Eleanor taught her to listen before rushing into a phrase.
“The silence belongs to the music too,” she would say.
On Elena’s last evening there, Eleanor had seemed frightened.
She gave Elena the key.
“If someone sends you away, keep this safe.”
Then she closed her eyes.
Elena thought she was tired.
By morning, Ruth was packing.
They left before breakfast.
Three days later, Elena heard that Eleanor had died.
Her mother never explained why they had fled. Whenever Elena asked, Ruth became pale and said some doors were safer left closed.
Then, six weeks before the wedding, Ruth died.
In the back of a wardrobe, Elena found a sealed envelope.
Inside was an address, a faded photograph, and a letter that began:
I did not save her when I had the chance. Please be braver than I was.
The address belonged to a private care facility called Greyhaven.
The photograph showed Eleanor standing at one of its windows.
Alive.
Older.
Holding a sheet of paper against the glass.
On it, in large uneven letters, were two words.
TELL MAXWELL.
“They moved her this morning,” Elena said.
Maxwell looked up.
He had not understood until then that the room was not where his mother had spent the missing years.
“They brought her here?”
Elena nodded.
“Through the service entrance during the flower delivery.”
