Chapter 3 - THE WHITE HOUSE
Police traced the message.
Burner number.
Activated that morning.
Purchased with cash.
No miracle.
No instant identity.
The hidden room gave them more.
Behind one loose floorboard was a folded receipt.
Not old enough to belong to the original house.
Two months old.
WHITE HARBOR RECOVERY SERVICES.
Amount:
$3,800.
Payer initials:
R.M.
Rhea Montgomery.
Her maiden name.
I stared at it.
“What is White Harbor?”
Detective Ellis said:
“We’re checking.”
The company existed.
Private neurological rehabilitation.
Three facilities.
One local.
Two out of state.
No patient information released without lawful process.
Good.
Medical privacy should not collapse because I was desperate.
Police obtained legal process.
Meanwhile, Rhea hired an attorney.
She denied imprisoning Perrin.
Her version:
Perrin ran into the old service room during a tantrum.
She closed the panel temporarily because he was throwing objects.
She intended to reopen it after he calmed down.
The empty water bottle?
She had placed it there because he had hidden there before.
Her statement explained one fact and made another worse.
She knew the room.
She knew Perrin used it.
She knew it could close.
Did she throw him?
Video from the upstairs corridor camera would matter.
Did we have one?
Yes.
I installed internal cameras after Serena’s death because Perrin started sleepwalking.
The upstairs unit had been offline for six weeks.
Why?
Rhea told me the battery module failed.
Technician records showed no repair request.
Someone disabled it through the home account.
User:
RHEA-M.
Her attorney said privacy.
She did not want engagement-party guests recorded upstairs.
Possible explanation.
Timing suspicious.
Not proof.
Then Detective Ellis called about Serena’s death file.
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“The identification.”
My mouth went dry.
The burned vehicle contained human remains.
DNA testing was limited because of heat damage.
Identification relied on:
Dental comparison.
A necklace recovered near the remains.
Vehicle registration.
Medical history.
“Was dental identification wrong?”
“We don’t know.”
“Whose remains?”
“We don’t know yet.”
My knees weakened.
“But there was a person.”
“Yes.”
So someone died.
Important.
Not fake accident with no body.
A real person had been in Serena’s vehicle.
I remembered the funeral.
Closed casket.
Rhea beside me.
Her hand on my shoulder.
She had organized half the arrangements because I could barely function.
“Who supplied Serena’s dental records?”
A pause.
“Your original file says family representative.”
“Who?”
“Rhea Montgomery.”
I sat down.
“She wasn’t family.”
“She identified herself as Serena’s stepsister.”
I almost laughed.
“They were friends.”
Detective Ellis went quiet.
“Not sisters?”
“No.”
That was our first provable lie in the death file.
Rhea had represented herself as family.
Why?
Still unknown.
Then the detective asked:
“Did Serena ever use another surname?”
“Her maiden name was Vale.”
“Any relatives named Montgomery?”
“No.”
The White Harbor receipt sat on my table.
Rhea Montgomery.
Serena Vale Sutton.
Two women who were never sisters.
Yet Rhea had told authorities she was.
That evening Naomi Price—my family attorney—arrived with another surprise.
“Your engagement agreement.”
“What about it?”
“You never signed the final version.”
“I know.”
Rhea and I planned to sign after the party.
Naomi opened the draft.
A provision I barely remembered:
Upon marriage, Kiernan’s household succession designation updates to current spouse unless prior spouse survives or estate rights remain unresolved.
I looked up.
“Prior spouse survives.”
Naomi nodded.
“If Serena is alive, several estate assumptions you’ve been living under are wrong.”
“Would Rhea benefit financially from marrying me?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Potentially significantly.”
Not enough yet.
Money can create motive.
It cannot prove a hidden living woman.
Then police called again.
White Harbor’s local facility had no patient matching Serena.
Neither did the second.
The third facility responded differently.
They had a patient admitted twenty-nine months earlier under a court-protected alias.
Female.
Approximately Serena’s age.
Severe post-traumatic brain injury.
Memory impairment.
Admission sponsor:
Rhea Montgomery.
My entire body went cold.
The facility would not confirm identity without the proper order.
Detective Ellis said:
May you like
“We’re obtaining one.”
For the first time in three years, I became afraid to hope.
