Chapter 3 - Someone Chose Alice
By breakfast, Chief Johnson had doubled security.
Alice wanted to believe the photograph was simply an ugly prank.
Chief Johnson did not.
“How did you find this job?” he asked.
“A listing.”
“Where?”
“An employment agency.”
“Which agency?”
Alice told him.
Chief Johnson called his assistant.
Ten minutes later, the answer arrived.
The Johnson household had never advertised the position through that agency.
Alice stared at him.
“But they sent me here.”
“Who interviewed you?”
“A woman named Mrs. Cole.”
Chica dropped a spoon.
Chief Johnson turned.
“You know that name?”
Chica’s hands trembled.
“No, sir.”
It was obviously a lie.
Alice followed Chica into the pantry later.
“Who is Mrs. Cole?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please.”
Chica looked exhausted.
“Some questions are dangerous.”
“So is pretending nothing is happening.”
Chica shut the pantry door.
Twenty years earlier, she explained, Chief Johnson had employed a personal assistant named Evelyn Cole.
Evelyn had disappeared after being accused of stealing company documents.
Chief Johnson had believed she fled.
Chica had never been convinced.
Alice felt cold.
“The woman who interviewed me was about forty.”
“Then it wasn’t Evelyn.”
“Could she have a daughter?”
Chica said nothing.
That afternoon Alice visited the employment agency.
The office was empty.
Not closed for lunch.
Empty.
Desks gone.
Sign removed.
Even the telephone number had been disconnected.
Someone had created an entire recruitment office long enough to place Alice inside the Johnson mansion.
But why?
Back at the mansion, Chief Johnson had discovered something else.
Nothing had been stolen from his office.
Instead, something had been placed there.
A photocopy of an old scholarship application.
The applicant’s name was Margaret Cole.
Alice stared at it.
“My grandmother’s name is Margaret.”
Chief Johnson looked at her.
“Her surname?”
Alice hesitated.
“Cole.”
The room went still.
Alice had always known her grandmother as Margaret Cole.
She had never connected the name to anything else.
Chief Johnson sat slowly.
“How old is your grandmother?”
“Seventy-three.”
“Did she ever work for my family?”
“Not that I know.”
Chief Johnson looked shaken.
Alice called Margaret.
Her grandmother answered after several rings.
“Alice?”
“Grandma, did you know the Johnson family?”
Silence.
Alice stood.
“Grandma?”
Margaret’s voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“At work.”
“Leave.”
Alice’s heart started pounding.
“Why?”
“Leave that house.”
“Grandma, someone sent me a photograph telling me the same thing.”
Another silence.
Then Margaret whispered something Alice had never heard from her before.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“I thought it was buried.”
The call disconnected.
Alice immediately called again.
No answer.
Chief Johnson sent Daniel to Margaret’s apartment.
Alice went with him.
The front door was unlocked.
The apartment was empty.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Alice ran into the bedroom.
Her grandmother’s handbag was gone.
Her medication remained on the bedside table.
That made no sense.
Margaret never left without it.
Alice searched the room.
Inside the bottom drawer, beneath folded blankets, she found a wooden box.
It was locked.
Daniel found a small key taped underneath.
Alice opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Chief Johnson as a young man.
His father.
A much younger Margaret.
And another woman.
Alice recognized the face immediately.
Mrs. Cole.
The woman who had interviewed her.
Except the photograph was more than twenty years old.
Alice’s hands began shaking.
“That’s impossible.”
Daniel leaned closer.
On the back were three names.
Margaret Cole.
Evelyn Cole.
Admila Johnson.
Below them was a handwritten sentence:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO EVELYN, FIND THE LEDGER.
Alice looked up.
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Daniel turned.
The bedroom door moved.
May you like
Someone was standing on the other side.
Then a woman’s voice whispered Alice’s name.
