Chapter 1 - The Line No One Was Supposed to See
Julian Mercer paid three million dollars for a portrait of himself.
Then he laughed when the cleaning woman said there was something wrong with it.
The unveiling took place in the ballroom of Mercer House, an old family mansion outside Boston that had belonged to Julian’s family for four generations.
Champagne moved through the room.
A string quartet played beneath crystal chandeliers.
Bankers, collectors, politicians, and gallery owners stood in front of the massive painting as if it were a religious object.
Julian stood beneath it in a black tuxedo.
The portrait showed him seated in the west library.
Dark suit.
Behind his left shoulder was the paneled wall.
And in that wall, barely visible, was a thin gray crack.
Julian noticed the woman staring at it.
Late forties.
Dark hair tied back.
Plain gray uniform.
Her name badge read MARA SANTOS.
Julian smiled.
“Something wrong?”
Mara hesitated.
“Maybe.”
Julian raised his glass.
“Please. Educate us.”
A few people laughed.
Mara stepped closer to the painting.
“That line.”
Julian looked.
“The crack?”
“Yes.”
He laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
Mara did not move.
Mara did not.
She held the pencil in the air beside the canvas and traced an invisible continuation of the crack.
Down.
Across.
Up.
The room went quiet.
A door.
Julian stopped smiling.
Mara looked at the wall behind the painted version of him.
Julian said nothing.
“She used to say there was a door behind that paneling.”
His father, Charles Mercer, stood near the fireplace.
Julian turned.
“Dad?”
Charles said too quickly, “There was never a door there.”
Mara looked at him.
“My mother said it was sealed the night her sister disappeared.”
The ballroom went silent.
Julian looked back at the portrait.
May you like
Then at the real west wall beyond the ballroom doors.
And for the first time in his life, he wondered why his father had spent thirty years insisting there was nothing behind it but brick.
