Chapter 3: The Secret Behind the Stone Walls
I set Donovan down on the wide sofa in the front sitting room and watched him curl against the cushions, exhausted.
My mother sat beside him, one hand resting on his back, her breathing finally slowing.
I went to the kitchen and filled a glass of water.
Brought it to her.
She accepted it without a word.
"Does your knee hurt?" I asked.
"A little," she said.
Then, after a pause: "Taylor, what is this place?"
"It's ours," I said.
"Just ours."
She looked at me the way she used to when I was twelve and said something she didn't quite believe.
But she didn't push.
She never pushed.
My phone buzzed again.
Not Caden this time.
A message from the community manager, Rafael.
*They're still outside.
Mr.
Holt is asking me to override the gate protocol.
I told him I don't have that authority.
He's not taking it well.*
I typed back: *Let him stand there.
Don't engage.*
I walked to the front window.
Through the pale stone arch of the entrance, I could see the street.
Caden was pacing on the sidewalk in bare feet, phone pressed to his ear.
Bonnie stood very still beside the old house, arms crossed, staring at the mansion.
Not with anger.
With recognition.
That was what unsettled me.
Not Caden's rage — I had expected that.
It was Bonnie's stillness.
The way her eyes moved across the facade of the building the way you look at something you've seen before in a different life.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I almost didn't answer.
Then something made me pick up.
"Is this Taylor Holt?" A woman's voice.
Older.
Careful.
"It is," I said.
"My name is Constance Avery.
I'm a property attorney.
I represented the previous owner of the residence you currently occupy." A pause.
"I've been waiting for someone to activate that biometric lock for three years.
I have documents that belong to you.
Documents the previous owner left specifically in the event that you ever moved in."
My hand tightened on the phone.
"Who was the previous owner?" I asked, though some part of me already felt the shape of the answer forming.
"His name was Gerald Marsh," she said.
"He passed away four years ago.
He was Bonnie Holt's first husband.
And he left everything — the mansion, the land, and a sealed letter — to the woman he described as the only person in that family worth leaving it to."
The room felt very quiet.
"He left it to me?" I said.
"He left it to you," Constance said.
"But there's something else in the documents, Mrs.
Holt.
Something Bonnie has known about since the week Gerald died.
Something she has spent four years making sure you never found out."
Outside, Bonnie hadn't moved.
She was still staring at the mansion.
"When can we meet?" I asked.
"Tomorrow morning," Constance said.
"Come alone."
I looked at my mother, asleep now beside Donovan on the sofa, her hand still resting on his back.
I looked back at Bonnie through the window.
Her eyes had found mine.
She knew I was on the phone.
May you like
She didn't know who with.
But her face told me she had just started calculating how much time she had left.
