Chapter 3 - The Hidden Hallway
The wounded officer fell beside the fireplace.
Daniel drove his shoulder into the man restraining him.
I grabbed Emma and ran toward the staircase.
A bullet shattered the framed family portrait above us.
“Left hallway!” Daniel shouted.
I turned.
Richard had disappeared.
The fake officers spread through the living room.
One overturned the couch searching for my phone.
They wanted the recording more than they wanted us.
I carried Emma down the side corridor toward the library.
Her breathing had become shallow.
“My face hurts,” she whispered.
“I know, baby.”
“Am I going to die?”
“No.”
The word came out too fast.
I had no idea what was on her skin.
Daniel caught up with us and locked the library door.
He dragged a heavy chair beneath the handle.
“Show me the jar.”
“They took it.”
“What did it smell like?”
“Almonds. Maybe chemicals.”
Emma began coughing.
Daniel looked around the room.
“My father has an emergency medical kit.”
“Where?”
He moved toward a bookcase and pressed a brass ornament.
A hidden panel opened.
Cold air flowed from a narrow passage.
I stared at him.
“You knew about this?”
“When I was a child. He told me it was for fires.”
Gunfire cracked outside the library.
Daniel took Emma from me.
We entered the passage.
The panel closed behind us.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one person. Small lights activated along the stone walls.
“Where does this lead?” I asked.
“The old wine cellar.”
“Does Richard know?”
“He built it.”
That did not comfort me.
We moved downward.
Emma’s face had begun swelling near her left eye.
Daniel kept speaking to her.
“Stay with me, sweetheart.”
“I’m sleepy.”
“No sleeping.”
At the bottom of the stairs, the corridor divided.
One path led toward the cellar.
The other toward a steel door marked MEDICAL STORAGE.
Daniel entered a code.
The lock flashed red.
He tried again.
“Changed.”
A speaker above us activated.
Richard’s voice filled the corridor.
“Daniel, I told you not to bring her into this house.”
Daniel looked up.
“You poisoned my daughter.”
“The cream was not meant for Emma.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
“Open the medical room.”
Silence.
I stepped toward the speaker.
“You wanted me dead. Why?”
Richard answered calmly.
“Because you found the ledger.”
I looked at Daniel.
“What ledger?”
His expression shifted.
He knew something.
Richard continued.
“Ask your husband what he stole from my study last week.”
Daniel pressed his palm against the steel door.
“Emma needs treatment.”
“Then give me Claire’s phone.”
I held it tighter.
“The confession is already uploaded.”
A lie.
But Richard did not know that.
The speaker went silent.
Then the door unlocked.
Inside the medical room were oxygen tanks, sealed antidote kits, and shelves of labeled chemicals.
Daniel placed Emma on a cot.
I searched the drawers.
One vial matched the symbol printed on the shattered jar.
DERMAL TOXIN CX-17.
Beside it was an antidote injector.
Daniel grabbed it.
Before he could use it, someone spoke behind us.
“That dose will kill her.”
The real police officer from the living room stood in the doorway.
The bullet wound in his side was worse than I had realized.
He raised one trembling hand.
“My name is Detective Aaron Cole.”
May you like
He looked at the injector.
“Richard switched the labels.”
