Chapter 4 - The Blue Room
Claire pulled Leo through a hidden panel behind the library fireplace.
“I used this passage when I was a kid,” she whispered. “Your grandfather thought I never knew about it.”
“Grandpa knew everything.”
Despite the fear in her face, Claire almost smiled.
They climbed a cramped staircase inside the wall and emerged behind a linen cabinet on the second floor.
The blue room stood at the end of the west corridor.
Leo had not been inside for years.
Henry once used it as a private map room. The walls were painted navy, and an enormous brass clock hung over the fireplace. After Grandma died, Henry locked the room and stopped talking about it.
Now the door had a new electronic lock.
Claire frowned. “That wasn’t there before.”
Leo held up the brass key.
“No keyhole,” she said.
Leo walked to the clock.
Its hands were frozen at 4:17.
Remember what I taught you about clocks.
Grandpa had taught him that old mechanical clocks did more than tell time. Their faces could hide screws, hinges, even safes.
Leo climbed onto a chair and pressed the center pin beneath the hands.
Nothing.
He turned the minute hand backward to seventeen.
Then the hour hand to four.
A soft click came from inside the wall.
The electronic lock went dark.
The door opened by itself.
Claire whispered, “Oh my God.”
The blue room was not empty.
Boxes covered the floor. Files. Bank statements. Photographs. A laptop. Three flash drives labeled with dates.
On the far wall were printed screenshots of transfers totaling more than thirty-eight million dollars.
Every transfer led from Mercer Industries subsidiaries into companies controlled by Richard Mercer.
Claire sat down hard on a chair.
“No.”
Leo found a folder marked PIKE.
Inside were copies of emails between Martin and a private doctor.
Increase dosage gradually. Confusion must appear natural.
Claire’s face changed.
“Dad’s medication.”
She reached for another file.
Leo saw a photograph slide onto the floor.
It showed Richard standing beside Henry’s black sedan near Blackwater Bridge.
The timestamp was six minutes before the car was found abandoned.
Then a printer on the other side of the room suddenly woke up.
Paper began sliding out.
One sheet.
Two.
Three.
Leo grabbed the first page.
It contained only one sentence.
May you like
THEY KNOW YOU ARE IN THE BLUE ROOM.
A heavy lock snapped shut behind them.
