Alexandra View - 6

He whispered through the glass: “She’s waiting for you, Lizzie. We’ve kept a place warm.”

Eliza pushed the creaking gate open. The key was still under the third frog statue, just as her mother had described. The lock turned with a reluctant clunk . 6 alexandra view

The rain over the Derbyshire moors had a way of making the ordinary feel ominous. It fell in steady, silver sheets, blurring the lone figure standing at the gate of “6 Alexandra View.” He whispered through the glass: “She’s waiting for

But it was the framed photograph above the fireplace that drew Eliza in: Lydia, beaming, her arm around a man with a kind face and a military posture. Her great-uncle, Arthur. The one who had died six months before Lydia vanished. The one whose bedroom—a locked room at the end of the upstairs hall—Eliza had never been allowed to enter. The lock turned with a reluctant clunk