Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Old Photograph
Mara returned the next morning with a shoebox.
Inside were photographs.
Pay stubs.
Letters.
And one Polaroid.
Lucia and Elena Santos stood in the Mercer kitchen.
Young.
Smiling.
White aprons.
Behind them, Charles Mercer was visible in the doorway.
He was looking at Elena.
Not the camera.
Julian noticed immediately.
Mara nodded.
“How close?”
“She never said.”
Rebecca looked at the photo.
“Did your mother ever tell police?”
“She tried.”
“What happened?”
“The detective said Elena probably ran away.”
Mara laughed bitterly.
Julian asked, “Did she have a boyfriend?”
Mara looked at Charles in the photograph.
Julian felt something twist in his chest.
His father had married Julian’s mother, Margaret, in 1990.
Less than a year after Elena vanished.
Rebecca pulled the old missing-person report.
“Any interviews?”
“Lucia. A bus station clerk. Two staff members.”
Julian frowned.
“My father?”
Rebecca scrolled.
“No.”
That made no sense.
If Charles had known Elena, why was he absent from the report?
Mara opened one of the letters.
Elena’s handwriting was slanted and quick.
Lucia,
If anything happens, look behind the blue room.
Julian looked up.
“What blue room?”
Mara shook her head.
Rebecca said, “There isn’t a blue room in the current floor plan.”
Julian stared at the letter.
His grandmother used to call the old upstairs nursery “the blue room.”
It had been repainted ivory before Julian was born.
Behind a dresser, they found an old brass vent cover.
Inside the wall was a folded envelope.
Julian reached in.
May you like
It contained a key.
And a photograph of Charles Mercer kissing Elena Santos.
