Chapter 6
Chapter 6
The Diary
The beam of flashlights swept across the stone corridor, cutting through the darkness like knives.
Grace instinctively held her breath.
Beside her, Eleanor silently closed the metal cabinet and motioned toward a narrow passage hidden behind a row of dusty shelves. Without a word, the two women slipped inside just as heavy footsteps entered the archive.
Jonathan Blackwood's voice echoed through the room.
"Search everything."
The guards immediately spread out, opening cabinets, inspecting crates, and shining their lights into every corner.
Grace crouched behind the concealed wall, barely able to see through a narrow crack between the bricks.
Jonathan stood in the center of the archive.
His expression was calm.
Too calm.
He didn't look like a man searching for an intruder.
He looked like someone confirming a suspicion.
"I know you're here," he said quietly.
No one answered.
He slowly walked toward Eleanor's desk, running his fingers across the dusty surface.
Then he smiled.
"She's been helping you."
Grace's heart skipped a beat.
Was he talking about Eleanor?
Or someone else?
Jonathan picked up a leather-bound journal from the desk.
"No matter," he murmured. "The truth always leaves traces."
Without another word, he tucked the journal under his arm and turned to leave.
Within seconds, the footsteps faded into the distance.
Only then did Grace finally exhale.
"They're gone," she whispered.
Eleanor remained still.
"No."
She pointed toward the entrance.
A single guard remained outside the archive, standing perfectly still.
"He's waiting," Eleanor said.
"For what?"
"For us to make a mistake."
The old architect moved to the back of the room and pressed against an uneven stone.
With a low rumble, part of the wall slid open, revealing a narrow maintenance tunnel.
"There are more passages than Jonathan realizes," Eleanor explained.
"He knows about this one?"
"I designed it."
Grace followed her through the cramped tunnel until they emerged inside a forgotten boiler room several hundred feet away.
The guard was gone.
For now.
As dawn approached, Grace returned to her small room in the servants' wing.
She locked the door behind her and emptied her apron pockets onto the bed.
The brass key.
The old cassette recorder.
A folded copy of the estate blueprint.
And something she didn't remember taking.
A small black notebook.
Grace frowned.
It wasn't hers.
She carefully opened the cover.
Inside the first page, written in elegant handwriting, were the words:
Property of Catherine Moore.
Grace's pulse quickened.
The missing mother.
This had been her diary.
The first entries seemed ordinary.
They described life inside the estate.
Jonathan's long business trips.
Daniel's first words.
Family dinners.
Birthday celebrations.
Grace smiled as she read Catherine's descriptions of her little boy.
"Daniel laughed so hard today that he scared the birds away."
"He insists the moon follows our car home every night."
"Jonathan says he has my curiosity."
For a brief moment, the Blackwood family seemed genuinely happy.
Then the tone changed.
One entry was dated exactly six months before Catherine disappeared.
April 14
I heard someone crying beneath the house tonight.
Jonathan says it's only the old pipes.
He's lying.
Grace turned the page.
April 19
I found an elevator that isn't shown on any blueprint.
It goes below the wine cellar.
Someone tried to stop me from opening it.
Another page.
April 27
Daniel keeps talking about his "friend underground."
Jonathan says children invent imaginary friends.
But Daniel described the room perfectly.
Grace stopped reading.
Friend underground?
How could Daniel know about the hidden chambers?
Unless...
He had been there before.
The next pages grew increasingly frantic.
Catherine's neat handwriting became uneven.
Words were crossed out.
Entire paragraphs ended abruptly.
She no longer trusted anyone.
Not even the household staff.
Then Grace reached an entry with several sentences underlined.
May 3
Someone watches every hallway.
The cameras are not for security.
They are watching us.
Grace slowly looked toward the ceiling of her room.
A small smoke detector blinked quietly above the door.
Had it always been there?
She stood on a chair and examined it more closely.
Hidden inside the detector was a tiny camera lens.
Her blood ran cold.
Someone had been watching her room.
She quickly covered the lens with a piece of black tape.
Seconds later, her phone vibrated.
Unknown Number.
Grace hesitated before answering.
"Hello?"
A man's calm voice spoke.
"You shouldn't have done that."
The line went dead.
Grace stared at the phone.
He had seen her cover the camera.
That afternoon, Grace met Isabella in the mansion's conservatory.
Sunlight streamed through the glass ceiling, illuminating hundreds of exotic flowers.
Isabella seemed unusually tense.
"You look worried," Grace said carefully.
"I could say the same about you."
For a long moment, neither woman spoke.
Finally, Isabella sighed.
"Did you find something?"
Grace studied her face.
Instead of denying anything, Isabella was asking.
"What makes you think that?"
"Because you're asking different questions now."
Grace reached into her apron pocket and pulled out Catherine's diary.
The color drained from Isabella's face.
"Where did you get that?"
"So you know what it is."
"I've been looking for it for years."
"Why?"
Isabella glanced around to make sure they were alone.
"Because if Jonathan finds the last pages..."
She stopped herself.
"The last pages?" Grace asked.
"There are pages missing."
"How many?"
"Twelve."
Grace quickly flipped through the diary.
Isabella was right.
Near the end, twelve pages had been carefully torn out.
"Who removed them?" Grace asked.
"I don't know."
"But whoever has those pages knows the truth."
Before Grace could ask another question, the mansion's emergency alarm suddenly echoed through every hallway.
A cold mechanical voice filled the estate.
"Security lockdown initiated."
Doors throughout the mansion slammed shut automatically.
Metal shutters covered every window.
Grace looked at Isabella.
"What is happening?"
Isabella's eyes widened with fear.
"He knows."
"Knows what?"
"He knows the diary has been found."
At that exact moment, Grace noticed something tucked inside the diary's back cover.
A folded piece of paper.
She carefully unfolded it.
It wasn't a letter.
It was a hand-drawn map.
May you like
In the center of the map, circled in red ink, were three words.
The Mother's Room.
