The Door That Had No Handle
Chapter 02 - The Door That Had No Handle
Adrian ran toward the east wing. I followed him despite the guard telling me to stay put. Fire alarms rang overhead, but there was no smell of smoke, only the harsh odor of cleaning chemicals. At the nursery, Adrian found a brass lock on a door whose outer handle had been removed.
He stared at it. “Who did this?”
Nobody answered.
“Lucy!” I shouted. “We're here!”
A faint knock sounded from inside. Adrian's face went white.
The guard used a tool from a maintenance cabinet to release the lock. Adrian pushed the door open and stopped dead. A small girl wearing blue pajamas sat behind a child-sized desk. Her hair was cut unevenly at her shoulders; she held an old stuffed fox by one ear. She looked at Adrian as if she knew him from a photograph.
“Daddy?”
He knelt without approaching closer. “Lucy?”
Her little face crumpled. “I didn't go away.”
Adrian held both hands open. She crossed the room slowly, then threw herself against his chest. He wept into her hair while I stood by the doorway, struggling to keep myself together.
Firefighters discovered that no fire had started. The alarm had been triggered manually. Vivian, meanwhile, had vanished through the rear service entrance.
A doctor examined Lucy that night. She was dehydrated, underweight, and frightened of sudden movements. Adrian ordered an independent safeguarding assessment and contacted the police, giving them the key and the notes I'd found.
At dawn, Lucy slept on a sofa with her head against his leg. I brought him a glass of water. He looked up with red eyes.
“Why did you help her?” he asked.
“Because she asked.”
He stared at me. “Everyone in this house knew she was here. Someone must have.”
“Then ask why they were afraid to tell you.”
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Adrian lowered his head. By morning, the mansion's silence had become a record of his failures.
**But when the police searched Vivian's office, they found something even Adrian hadn't known to fear.**
