Chapter 2 - THE SEALED HATCH
The floorboard lifted less than an inch.
Then slammed back down.
Lily screamed.
Ryan carried her toward the ballroom while I dropped onto my knees and pressed both palms against the oak.
Something beneath me scraped across metal.
“Daniel!”
Vanessa reached the foyer before two of my cousins blocked the doors.
She spun around.
“This is insane!”
“Then stay,” I said. “If it’s only plumbing, you have nothing to worry about.”
Her eyes flicked toward the floor.
That frightened me more than her attempt to leave.
Our estate manager, Mason Reed, pushed through the wedding guests carrying a flashlight.
He had supervised renovations at the villa for almost nine years.
“What’s going on?”
I pointed downward.
“Old passage under here?”
Mason hesitated.
“Not one that’s usable.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Another knock answered from beneath us.
Mason’s jaw tightened.
Ryan returned without Lily.
“I gave her to Mom.”
My mother, Margaret, stood at the end of the hallway holding Lily against her cream-colored dress.
Even from twenty feet away, I could see her disapproval.
Margaret had spent months telling me Vanessa was the woman who could finally bring stability back into my life.
Now she looked irritated rather than afraid.
“Daniel,” she said, “your guests are watching.”
“I don’t care.”
I ran my fingers along the floorboards until I felt a seam.
It formed a rectangle nearly three feet wide.
A hidden access hatch.
Mason crouched beside me.
“That should have been permanently secured.”
“Should have?”
His eyes moved toward Vanessa.
Vanessa said nothing.
Ryan brought a fireplace poker from the sitting room.
We wedged it into the seam.
The first pull did nothing.
The second produced a metallic crack.
On the third, one corner rose.
Cold air escaped from beneath the floor.
Not musty air.
Fresh air.
Ventilated air.
Mason whispered, “That’s impossible.”
I lifted the hatch enough to expose a steel ladder disappearing into darkness.
Vanessa rushed forward.
“Daniel, stop!”
I turned.
“Why?”
“There could be electrical lines down there.”
Ryan stared at her.
“You knew there was a space?”
Vanessa froze.
I clicked on Mason’s flashlight and aimed it downward.
A narrow concrete corridor ran beneath the hallway.
At the far end stood a steel door.
Something pale lay on the steps.
I climbed down.
“Daniel!” Ryan called.
I ignored him.
Halfway down, I recognized the pale object.
A woman’s silk scarf.
Claire’s.
She had worn it when she brought Lily here six days ago.
My stomach dropped.
Then a faint sound came through the corridor.
Not knocking.
A voice.
Hoarse.
Weak.
“Daniel?”
I almost fell from the ladder.
Behind me, somebody ran.
Ryan shouted from above.
“Vanessa!”
By the time I climbed back high enough to see the hallway, the front door was open.
May you like
And Vanessa was gone.
📖 The woman beneath my house was about to answer one question, but what she said first would turn my own family against me. 👇
