Chapter 5 - The First WifeEmily tried to stand.
Pain tore through her shoulder.
Richard caught her before she fell.
Abigail remained behind the glass, pale and shaking. Faint marks circled her wrists. An identification bracelet hung loosely around one arm.
Ethan backed toward the front entrance.
The younger police officer blocked him.
Margaret’s expression changed from fear to fury.
“She is a psychiatric patient.”
Abigail struck the glass.
“I am your prisoner.”
Grant attempted to leave the living room.
The older officer ordered him to remain.
Dr. Voss moved toward the corridor.
“I need to assess her.”
Abigail recoiled.
“No.”
Richard took the brass floor plan from Catherine’s file and located the manual release beside the bookcase.
The glass door opened.
Abigail stumbled forward.
Carmen wrapped a blanket around her.
Emily stared at Ethan.
“How long has she been here?”
Abigail answered.
“Six days this time.”
“This time?”
“They move me between the mansion and St. Agnes Wellness Center whenever I remember too much.”
Ethan looked toward the officers.
“She was declared incompetent after attempting to burn the estate.”
“I set fire to the transfer papers.”
“You nearly killed my mother.”
“Your mother was standing outside the room with the key.”
Margaret lifted her chin.
“She became violent when Ethan asked for a divorce.”
Abigail laughed weakly.
“He never divorced me.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Grant stepped in.
“The marriage was annulled.”
“I never signed an annulment.”
“Court records say otherwise.”
“The same court that declared me dead?”
Emily looked at Grant.
Abigail had been reported killed in a boating accident seven years earlier. Ethan later told friends that a college girlfriend died before they became engaged.
He erased a wife and converted her into a sad story.
Abigail reached for Emily’s hand.
“I tried to warn you before your wedding.”
“I received an anonymous letter.”
The Ashfords do not marry women. They acquire signatures.
Emily had assumed it came from a jealous stranger.
Ethan burned it in the kitchen.
Abigail said she had sent three more.
None reached Emily.
Dr. Voss opened his bag again.
Abigail panicked.
“He injects me when I talk.”
The older officer ordered the doctor away from both women.
Richard examined the corridor.
Food trays.
Medication packaging.
A camera pointed toward Abigail’s glass room.
Another door stood at the far end.
Locked.
Catherine’s floor plan labeled it:
ARCHIVE SUITE.
The key from the red file opened that door too.
Inside were shelves of psychiatric reports, guardianship orders, marriage records, trust documents, and photographs.
Not only Abigail.
Eight women.
Each had married a man connected to Grant Voss.
Each controlled substantial property or inheritance.
Each was later declared unstable.
Three supposedly died.
Two disappeared.
One remained in a private clinic.
Emily’s file was the newest.
Across the cover:
FINAL EASTER TRANSFER.
Abigail opened her own file.
Her signature appeared on documents she had never seen. Ethan received control of her family’s manufacturing shares after she was declared mentally incapacitated.
Margaret received consulting fees.
Grant received legal custody of the assets.
Dr. Voss received payments for evaluations.
Ethan looked at the floor.
Emily saw shame in his face.
She also saw fear.
Neither erased what he had done.
“Were you forced?” she asked.
Ethan looked at Margaret.
She answered for him.
“My son protected this family.”
Abigail laughed.
“He enjoyed the house, the money, and the women who stopped being able to say no.”
Ethan shouted:
“I never wanted her locked in here!”
“You hit me until I signed.”
“You attacked my mother.”
“You keep saying the words she gave you.”
Margaret stepped toward Abigail.
Richard moved between them.
The older officer used his radio to request detectives, medical personnel, and an evidence team.
The radio returned only static.
The mansion security system had jammed external communications again.
Carmen tried the landline.
Dead.
The hidden speaker activated.
Catherine’s voice said:
“Grant is deleting St. Agnes.”
Grant looked upward.
Richard understood.
Not deleting a building.
Deleting its records.
Carmen found the clinic’s live patient database in the archive suite.
Names disappeared from the screen one by one.
Abigail Gray.
Removed.
Emily Bennett Ashford.
Pending admission.
Then another patient file appeared.
Catherine Bennett.
Status:
Transferred from St. Agnes at 8:40 p.m.
Destination:
Ravenscourt Mansion.
Richard searched every room visible on the floor plan.
Catherine’s name was attached to a chamber beneath the grand staircase.
The space had no listed door.
Emily looked toward the chandelier.
“Mom is here.”
A soft knock came from below the cream carpet.
Three times.
Then twice.
Carmen whispered:
“That’s the old Bennett family signal.”
Richard remembered it.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Two knocks.
May you like
Alive. Unsafe.
👉 Catherine had not spoken through a recording—she was trapped beneath the room where Emily had been attacked.
