Chapter 3: ECHOES OF BETRAYAL The air in the study was heavy, like the walls themselves were holding their breath. Lila’s hand hovered over her revolver as she turned toward the corner where she’d seen the glint of eyes. Nothing. The curtain swayed slightly, as though disturbed by a breeze—but the windows were closed. “Show yourself,” Lila ordered, her voice steady despite the tremor in her chest. Silence answered her. Then, slowly, the light shifted as the figure stepped forward. A man in his late thirties, tall and thin, with sharp cheekbones and an academic air. He wore a charcoal coat, his dark hair slicked neatly back, and his hands were clasped behind his back as though he were lecturing in a university hall rather than standing in a room with a corpse down the hall. “Dr. Adrian Cole,” he introduced himself smoothly. “Historian. New to Ravenwood.” Lila narrowed her eyes. “Newcomers usually introduce themselves in daylight, Doctor. Not by lurking in the shadows of a crime scene.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “And detectives don’t usually miss when someone is watching them. You were too focused on the journal.” He had her there. Still, his presence set her teeth on edge. “What are you doing here?” she pressed. “I could ask you the same,” Adrian said, his voice lowering as if someone might overhear. “But I’ll give you this much: Eleanor’s disappearance is not as simple as you think. The Blackwoods have a history—and I suspect someone wants that history buried. Permanently.” Before Lila could demand more, the butler’s voice called from down the hall: “Detective? The constable has arrived.” When she looked back, Adrian was gone. No sound of footsteps, no opening door. Just gone—like a shadow swallowed by fog. The rest of the night passed in a blur of official statements and weary silence. By dawn, the manor was sealed, the staff dismissed, and the body taken for examination. Lila trudged home, the crimson feather from Eleanor’s desk now tucked inside her notebook. She couldn’t shake the words from Thomas’s journal: If anything happens to me… find Eleanor. She dropped her keys into the bowl by the door, shrugging off her coat. But something was off. The stillness in her house wasn’t the stillness of home—it was the suffocating quiet of a place that had been tampered with. Her eyes scanned the living room. That’s when she saw it. Above the mantelpiece hung a painting she had never owned. A portrait of the Blackwood family—Eleanor, Thomas, and their late parents—all dressed in severe Victorian attire. Except one detail was horribly wrong: one face in the portrait had been scratched out with violent strokes, leaving only jagged scars across the canvas. A low chill crept along her spine. Someone had been in her home. Someone wanted her to see this. And then she noticed the envelope resting on the coffee table. Her name scrawled across the front in blood-red ink. With deliberate care, she opened it. Inside was a single line: “Check your own house before it’s too late.” Her heart thundered. She turned slowly, every nerve alight. And in the reflection of the darkened window, she thought she saw movement—someone standing just behind her. She spun—
