They did not open the front door.
Naomi led them down a narrow staircase into the basement and out through a laundry entrance that opened onto the alley. Her hands were steady until she locked the gate behind them. Then she swore under her breath.
"If Adrian found us that fast, he either followed you or he has access to something he shouldn't."
"He has access to everything," Evelyn said.
It sounded different now.
For seven years, Adrian Mercer had been the person she trusted when trust exhausted her. He had sat with her through the last private search for Mara. He had told her it was cruel to herself to keep reopening the same wound. He had built his life around making her feel protected.
Protection, Evelyn realized, could look a great deal like control if you stood far enough away.
Naomi took them to an office she rented under her firm's name. It occupied the second floor above a shuttered print shop. There, Lily finally slept.
Evelyn sat beside her on a battered sofa and studied the child's face.
The resemblance to Mara became more obvious with every minute.
Same long lashes. Same stubborn line between the brows even in sleep. Same small crescent-shaped birthmark near the left ear.
Evelyn used to kiss that mark when Mara was little.
She turned away quickly.
"We need proof," Naomi said.
"DNA."
"Eventually. But right now, proof of where Mara has been."
Evelyn unfolded Mara's note again.
On the back, nearly invisible beneath the crease, was a graphite smear.
She held it toward the light.
"There's something here."
Naomi found a pencil and shaded lightly across the paper.
Indentations appeared.
BLUE WINDOWS. NORTH WALL. FOURTH BOARD.
Evelyn's heartbeat quickened.
There was only one place Mara could mean.
Their grandmother's summer house in Cold Spring.
The house had blue shutters, which the sisters had always called blue windows as children. Gideon sold it after Mara's memorial.
Or claimed he did.
Naomi pulled property records.
The house had been sold to a company named Alden Shore LLC eight years ago.
Alden Shore was registered to another shell entity.
The service address led to a corporate agent used by Hart & Vale.
"Your family never sold it," Naomi said. "They moved it."
By dusk, they were driving north in Naomi's car.
Lily woke halfway there.
"Mom took me here once," she said when the trees began to thicken around the road.
Evelyn twisted around in her seat. "When?"
"Last winter. We didn't go inside. She just cried in the car."
The summer house appeared through the trees twenty minutes later.
Weather had stripped paint from the shutters, but they were still blue.
The front door was chained.
Naomi cut the lock with bolt cutters from the trunk.
"Why do you own bolt cutters?" Evelyn asked.
"Because unlike you, I plan for betrayal."
Inside, the air smelled of wet wood and dust.
Evelyn had not been there since the summer before Mara vanished.
She remembered Mara dancing barefoot across the kitchen floor. Their father yelling from the deck. Their mother, still alive then, laughing as she tried to keep a vase from falling.
Memories crowded every room.
Lily walked directly upstairs.
"How do you know where you're going?" Evelyn asked.
"Mom showed me."
They entered the bedroom the sisters had shared.
The wallpaper was faded. Two bed frames remained against opposite walls.
Lily pointed to the north wall.
Fourth board.
Naomi pried it away with a fireplace tool.
Inside the wall was a plastic sleeve containing an old Polaroid photograph.
Mara stood in front of St. Agnes Recovery Center.
She looked thin. Frightened. Alive.
The date written beneath the photo was four years after her supposed death.
Beside her stood a man in a doctor's coat.
Dr. Isaac Voss.
Evelyn recognized him immediately.
He had been their father's psychiatrist during the last year of his life.
He had also testified at the hearing that transferred temporary control of Mara's inheritance after she disappeared.
Naomi turned the photograph over.
There were three lines on the back.
ROOM 17.
THEY CALL ME NORA HERE.
EVIE SIGNED THE PAPER.
Evelyn read the last line twice.
"I never signed anything."
Naomi's silence made her look up.
"What?"
"You signed a lot of documents after Mara disappeared. Probate. Insurance. Corporate transfers."
"Not commitment papers."
"Maybe you didn't know what they were."
Evelyn shook her head.
"No."
But a memory had begun to surface.
Gideon's study.
A stack of papers.
Adrian, then only a junior attorney, placing colored tabs beside signature lines.
You don't need to read all of it, Evie. This just lets us protect Mara's assets until the court decides what to do.
Her stomach rolled.
Naomi touched her arm.
"Evelyn?"
From downstairs came the sound of a door opening.
They had locked it.
Lily grabbed Evelyn's hand.
Footsteps moved across the kitchen.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Then a man's voice called up the stairs.
"Evelyn, we need to talk about what you signed."
