Chapter 1 - THE PHOTOGRAPH INSIDE HIS JACKET.
Nora Hale sat at the Ashford dining table and lifted the teacup Vivian had forbidden every servant to touch.
“Put that cup down. You are a servant in my house!”
Nora lowered it without fear and raised a silver key on its short chain.
“Then explain why I have the key your husband swore was destroyed.”
Charles Ashford entered, saw the key and gripped the table.
“Where did you get that?”
“Exactly where you told her no one could enter.”
Vivian’s anger cracked into panic. She demanded that security search Nora, but Charles stopped her.
Nora stood until she faced them at equal height.
“You know what it opens. Tell her before I do.”
Charles admitted the key belonged to a sealed room beneath the servants’ staircase. Vivian had been told the room burned thirty years earlier.
Nora placed the key beside the gold-trimmed saucer.
“My mother entered that room the night she disappeared.”
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Then Charles whispered, “Your mother did not disappear.”
From inside his jacket, he removed a current photograph of her.
