Chapter 3 - THE WHITE HOUSE The police searched Rhea's belongings before midnight.
They found nothing.
No photographs of Serena.
No hidden documents.
No obvious connection to another property.
Rhea sat in an interview room looking almost serene.
Her lawyer arrived before sunrise.
She denied everything.
She claimed Perrin had wandered upstairs during the engagement dinner.
She said she found him crying and placed him in the old service room because she thought it was safer than allowing him to run down the stairs.
She denied pushing him.
Denied threatening him.
Denied knowing anything about Serena.
Most importantly, she denied the white house.
“I've never heard of it,” she said.
Detective Ellis placed the anonymous text on the table.
Rhea read it.
For the first time, the calm disappeared.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
So did Ellis.
“You recognize that message,” Ellis said.
“No.”
“Then why did your expression change?”
“It didn't.”
I stood outside the room.
Watching.
Rhea suddenly looked through the glass directly at me.
Her eyes weren't angry.
They were pleading.
That frightened me more.
Later that morning, Ellis handed me a copy of the original crash report.
The accident had happened on a mountain road thirty-seven miles outside town.
Serena's SUV had gone through a guardrail during a storm.
The vehicle burned.
A body had been recovered.
Dental records had been inconclusive because of the condition of the remains.
The final identification had relied partly on personal effects found inside the vehicle.
Serena's wedding ring.
Her purse.
Her driver's license.
I stared at the report.
“Who signed the identification?”
Ellis turned the page.
A name.
Dr. Adrian Vale.
Medical examiner.
Three years ago.
I recognized it.
Adrian had attended Serena's funeral.
He had stood beside Rhea.
That afternoon, Ellis searched the state medical database.
Dr. Vale had retired six months after Serena's death.
His house?
The answer made my blood run cold.
He lived near the same mountain range.
May you like
And there was a second property listed under his name.
A white farmhouse.
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