Chapter 6 - The Figure Behind the Stone
Sophie’s drawing showed a narrow outline where the stone wall should have been solid.
Nora returned to the hidden room with Elias and a building inspector.
Behind a wine rack, they found a second passage leading to an unused service corridor.
The corridor connected the kitchen, Grant’s office, Camille’s bedroom suite, and a sealed nursery that had belonged to Rebecca.
Anyone familiar with the mansion could have entered the stone room without using the brass key.
That discovery should have cleared Nora.
Instead, Camille argued that a caregiver who spent long hours in the house could have learned the route.
Grant added that Nora’s financial records showed overdue medical bills from her mother’s final illness.
Again, poverty was presented as criminal intent.
Nora finally lost her composure.
She demanded to know why a rich person’s hunger for millions was treated as ambition while a working woman’s unpaid bill was treated as motive.
No one answered.
The inspector opened the sealed nursery and found it untouched, except for a fresh footprint in the dust.
Inside a desk were letters Rebecca had written shortly before her death.
She accused someone in the Whitmore circle of diverting money from Sophie’s trust through shell charities.
She also wrote that she feared Elias would protect the family name before protecting the truth.
Elias read the line twice and could not deny it.
He had already asked the police to keep the investigation private.
Nora told him secrecy was the same weapon being used against her.
Then Camille entered with a court order granting her temporary guardianship of Sophie, supported by statements that Elias was emotionally unstable and Nora posed a danger.
The order had been signed by a judge whose reelection campaign received donations from the Whitmore Foundation.
Sophie screamed when Camille tried to take her.
Elias blocked the doorway, but officers warned him not to interfere.
As Camille led the child away, Sophie dropped the plush fox at Nora’s feet.
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The fox’s remaining eye had been replaced with a tiny camera lens.
When Nora connected it to a laptop, the screen showed live footage from inside Camille’s car—and Grant was sitting in the back seat beside Sophie.
