Chapter 5 — Clara’s Room

The phone rang again.

Elena had never heard a sound so ordinary feel so wrong.

It came from upstairs, thin and sharp, cutting through the grand hallway like it belonged to another time. Not a mobile. Not the smooth little buzz of money and modern life. An old phone. The kind that sat beside beds in films, the kind people answered before bad news ruined them.

Adrian’s hand was still on her waist.

She should have moved away. She knew that. But for one breath she stayed there, pressed close enough to feel the damp heat of his shirt beneath her palm, close enough to know his heart was beating faster than it should have been.

So he did feel things.

He just buried them well.

The older woman at the foot of the stairs had gone pale. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her black dress, knuckles almost white.

“Mrs Vale,” Adrian said, his voice low, “who is up there?”

“No one, sir.”

The phone rang again.

Elena looked up the staircase. The landing above was dim, the hallway beyond it darker still. At the far end, one door stood open.

Waiting.

She stepped out of Adrian’s hold.

He caught her wrist before she could take another step. “Don’t.”

The word was quiet, but there was a crack in it.

Elena looked down at his hand, then up at his face. “Is that her room?”

His jaw tightened.

That was answer enough.

A cold little laugh left her. “Of course it is.”

“Elena—”

“No. Don’t Elena me.” Her voice shook, but she didn’t care. “I’m standing in your house, wearing your coat, apparently engaged to you, and there’s a dead woman’s bedroom calling us from upstairs. So either tell me the truth, or let go.”

For a second, he didn’t move.

Then his fingers loosened.

Elena climbed the stairs before fear could change her mind.

The house felt different above. Quieter. The kind of quiet that didn’t mean peace, but secrets. Her cheap shoes made soft sounds against the polished wood, and every portrait on the wall seemed to watch her pass. Blackwood men in dark suits. Blackwood women with diamond throats and unhappy eyes.

Adrian followed behind her.

Not close enough to touch.

Close enough that she felt him anyway.

At the top of the stairs, the phone stopped ringing.

Elena froze.

The silence was worse.

The open door waited at the end of the hall.

She glanced back. “Whose room?”

Adrian’s expression had gone hard, but his eyes were somewhere else. Somewhere years away.

“Clara’s.”

Hearing the name out loud made Elena’s stomach twist.

“Your fiancée?”

“Yes.”

“The one who disappeared?”

“Yes.”

“And you kept her bedroom like this?”

“My grandfather did.”

“Why?”

His mouth curved slightly, but there was no humour in it. “Because Blackwoods don’t bury things. They display them.”

Before Elena could reply, the phone rang again.

Loud. Sudden. Inside the room.

Elena flinched.

Adrian moved first, stepping in front of her. For all his coldness, it was instinctive. Protective. She hated how much she noticed that. Hated how much her body remembered the feel of his hand on her waist, the way he had caught her like she mattered.

He entered the room.

Elena followed.

Clara’s bedroom smelled faintly of dust and old perfume. Not unpleasant. That made it worse. The curtains were drawn, but a slit of rain-grey light cut across the carpet. A white dress hung from the wardrobe door, covered in clear plastic. A silver hairbrush sat on the dressing table beside a lipstick without its cap. On the bed, the pillows were arranged with careful cruelty, as if someone still expected Clara to come home and sleep there.

The phone sat on the bedside table.

White. Clean. Ringing.

Adrian stared at it like it was a weapon.

“Pick it up,” Elena whispered.

“No.”

“Then I will.”

His hand shot out, stopping her. This time he didn’t let go quickly. His fingers wrapped around hers, warm and firm, and the sudden contact stole more breath from her than the room did.

Their eyes met.

For a moment, everything narrowed to that. His hand. Her pulse. The dark anger in his face. The strange heat between them that had no right existing in a dead woman’s bedroom.

“You’re not as fearless as you pretend,” he said quietly.

Elena swallowed. “Neither are you.”

Something changed in his eyes.

Then he released her and picked up the receiver.

The ringing stopped.

Adrian held it to his ear.

Elena watched his face.

At first, nothing.

Then the colour slowly drained from him.

“What?” she whispered.

He lowered the phone and held it out to her.

She didn’t want to take it.

She did anyway.

For a few seconds, there was only static. Soft. Wet-sounding. Like rain through a bad signal.

Then a woman’s voice breathed into her ear.

“Elena Hart should leave before he falls in love with her too.”

The line went dead.

Elena dropped the phone.

It hit the floor with a sharp crack, and she stumbled back into Adrian. His hands caught her waist, pulling her against him before she fell. His body was hard and warm behind hers, his breath rough near her ear.

“Now,” he said, voice low, “do you understand why I told you not to come upstairs?”

Elena couldn’t answer.

Because across the room, beneath the bed, something moved.

A pale hand slid out from the darkness.