Chapter 8 - The Tunnel Beneath the Mansion
The hidden passage began behind a wine rack in the mansion cellar.
Lucas carried Emma through the narrow stone tunnel while Margaret remained behind to hold the study.
Rainwater seeped through the ceiling.
The air smelled of earth and rust.
Emma kept one arm around Lucas’s neck.
“Are you really my dad?”
Lucas nearly stopped walking.
He had faced armed men without blinking.
That question frightened him more than all of them.
“I believe I am.”
“My mommy said you might hate us.”
“I could never hate you.”
“You didn’t come find me.”
The words were quiet.
Not accusing.
That made them worse.
Lucas tightened his hold.
“I thought your mother was dead.”
Emma rested her cheek against his shoulder.
“She cried when she talked about you.”
Lucas stared ahead into the darkness.
“So did I.”
At the end of the tunnel, an old garage opened beneath an abandoned carriage house. Inside sat a black sedan with mechanical ignition, untouched by Harold’s digital system.
Lucas placed Emma in the back seat.
Before he could start the engine, headlights swept across the garage doors.
A vehicle stopped outside.
Lucas shut off the interior light.
Two men entered with flashlights.
One wore a black signet ring.
The other carried a hospital access badge.
Lucas understood immediately.
They were not arriving from the mansion.
They were leaving for the hospital.
He moved through the shadows before they saw him.
The fight lasted less than twenty seconds.
One man struck the concrete wall.
The other dropped his weapon when Lucas broke his wrist against the car hood.
Emma watched through the rear window, terrified but silent.
Lucas dragged the man with the hospital badge upright.
“Who are you going to see?”
The man spat blood onto the floor.
“Jane Carter.”
Lucas pressed him against the vehicle.
“What were your orders?”
“To make sure she stopped breathing.”
Emma opened the car door.
“Don’t hurt my mommy!”
The man looked toward her.
Then smiled.
“She’s probably already dead.”
Lucas’s fist tightened.
But he remembered Emma was watching.
He released the man and locked both attackers inside the garage storage cage.
Then he took the hospital badge.
As Lucas started the sedan, Emma pulled the damp photograph from her apron.
“My mommy said you would come.”
Lucas looked at her in the mirror.
May you like
“Then I won’t make her a liar.”
👉 Lucas and Emma were racing toward the hospital, unaware that Evelyn’s killer had already entered her room wearing a doctor’s coat.
