Chapter 3 - The Secret Beneath the House
Adrian didn't hesitate.
He activated the house lockdown and ordered security to the basement.
Daniel pulled Evelyn away from the windows.
I stared at the security screen.
Victor Hale disappeared through the basement doorway.
Someone inside our home had let him in.
That meant the threat wasn't outside anymore.
It was already among us.
“Who has access to that door?” I asked.
Adrian was typing rapidly on his phone.
“Me. Rosa. Head of security. Maintenance supervisor.”
“Four people?”
“Four authorized people.”
Daniel looked toward the hallway.
“And anyone who copied a key.”
Adrian called his security chief.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His expression hardened.
“Stay here.”
He headed for the door.
I followed.
“No.”
He turned.
“You're staying with Evelyn.”
“This is my house.”
“And someone just broke into it.”
“Because of my family.”
“Claire.”
“I'm coming.”
He knew arguing would waste time.
“Stay behind me.”
We descended the staircase.
The mansion suddenly felt unfamiliar.
Every polished surface could hide someone.
Every doorway looked dangerous.
Daniel stayed upstairs with Evelyn.
Adrian and I reached the basement corridor.
Two security guards were already there.
The door stood open.
Beyond it was an empty storage room.
“No Victor,” one guard said.
Adrian checked another camera.
Nothing.
Then I noticed something.
A section of shelving had been moved.
Behind it was a narrow opening in the wall.
“What is that?”
Adrian stared.
“I've never seen it.”
The house had belonged to Adrian's grandfather.
Parts were nearly eighty years old despite multiple renovations.
We entered.
The opening led to a narrow brick passage.
At the end was another door.
Unlocked.
Inside was a room.
Not large.
Not abandoned.
A desk.
Metal cabinets.
A disconnected telephone.
And photographs.
Hundreds of photographs.
Pinned across one wall.
Most were of me.
Some were of Adrian.
Some of Evelyn.
Recent photographs.
My mother sleeping beneath a church awning.
Walking behind a grocery store.
Sitting alone on a park bench.
Someone had been watching her.
Inside our house.
I stepped backward.
“No.”
Adrian looked furious.
“This wasn't here.”
“Clearly it was.”
“I mean I didn't know.”
I believed him.
His shock was too immediate.
I walked toward the desk.
A notebook lay open.
Dates.
Locations.
Initials.
EB.
DC.
CC.
Evelyn Bennett.
Daniel Cross.
Claire Cole.
Another set of initials appeared repeatedly.
RC.
My father?
No.
Richard had been dead four years.
Unless the notes were old.
I flipped backward.
The entries began eighteen months ago.
RC couldn't be Richard.
“Who is RC?”
Adrian looked.
“I don't know.”
A drawer contained copies of our staff schedules.
Rosa.
Chef.
Drivers.
Security.
Someone knew when every employee worked.
Someone had built an observation room beneath our home.
A floorboard creaked behind us.
Adrian turned.
A man ran.
One security guard chased him.
The other stayed with us.
We heard shouting.
Then silence.
The guard's radio crackled.
“Got him.”
Minutes later, they dragged in our maintenance supervisor.
Paul Mercer.
He had worked for Adrian's family for eleven years.
His face was bleeding from a cut above his eyebrow.
Adrian stared at him.
“You.”
Paul laughed.
“You really don't know anything, do you?”
“Who is Victor Hale?”
Paul's smile disappeared.
“Ask your wife.”
I stepped forward.
“I've never met him.”
“Not that you remember.”
My skin prickled.
“What does that mean?”
Paul looked at me.
“October fourteenth.”
The date.
Again.
“What happened?”
He smiled.
“Ask Evelyn.”
Adrian grabbed his shirt.
“Answer her.”
Paul looked amused.
“Your mother didn't disappear that night, Claire.”
“I know.”
“She wasn't the only one who was supposed to.”
I froze.
“What?”
Before he could continue, a security guard shouted.
Paul collapsed.
At first I thought Adrian had hit him.
Then I saw the blood.
A small dart protruded from Paul's neck.
“Down!”
Adrian pulled me behind the desk.
The guards searched the passage.
No shooter.
No Victor.
Paul convulsed.
By the time emergency medical help arrived, he was unconscious.
Someone had silenced him.
From inside the passage.
We returned upstairs.
Evelyn took one look at my face.
“What happened?”
I put my father's letter on the table.
“What happened October fourteenth?”
She went pale.
“Claire.”
“No more protecting me.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Tell her.”
Evelyn's hands trembled.
“That night, your father wasn't trying to stop me from leaving.”
“What was he trying to do?”
“He was trying to get the locket.”
I touched it instinctively.
“Why?”
“Because I hid something inside it.”
I opened the locket.
Only the photograph.
She reached out.
“Give it to me.”
I did.
She pressed her thumbnail beneath the photograph.
The inner backing lifted.
A tiny cavity.
Empty.
I stared.
“What was there?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
“Where?”
“First National Bank.”
Daniel shook his head.
“That branch closed fifteen years ago.”
“The boxes were transferred,” Adrian said.
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I've been researching this.”
Of course he had.
“What was inside the box?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Evidence.”
“Against my father?”
“And others.”
“Victor Hale?”
“Yes.”
“What evidence?”
“Account ledgers. Names. Photographs. Copies of payments.”
“Where is the key?”
She looked at the empty cavity.
“I don't know.”
My mind raced.
My father had taken the locket after my mother disappeared.
But somehow I had ended up with it.
“When did you give this to me?”
“The afternoon before we tried to leave.”
“Was the key inside then?”
“Yes.”
I remembered my mother fastening it around my neck.
Never take this off.
My father must have known.
“What happened after he caught us?”
“He searched me. Daniel got me away. Richard kept you.”
“And the locket?”
“You were wearing it.”
A memory surfaced.
My father kneeling in front of me.
Give me the necklace, Claire.
Me crying.
No.
Then my aunt entering.
My father's anger.
I suddenly remembered something else.
“I hid it.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?” Adrian asked.
“The locket. I hid it from Dad.”
“Where?”
“I don't remember.”
But fragments came.
A bedroom.
A stuffed rabbit.
Blue thread.
Mr. Buttons.
My pulse jumped.
“My rabbit.”
Evelyn stared.
“What?”
“I hid the locket inside Mr. Buttons.”
That explained why my father never found it.
Years later, when I moved away for college, I found the necklace inside the toy.
But the key had been gone.
“Someone removed the key before I found it again.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Who had access to your room?”
“My father. My aunt.”
“Anyone else?”
I thought.
Then remembered.
“My cousin Rachel.”
RC.
The initials in the basement notebook.
Rachel Carter.
My aunt's daughter.
Three years older than me.
She had stayed with us often after my mother disappeared.
I hadn't spoken to her in nearly five years.
“RC,” I whispered.
Adrian immediately understood.
“Rachel Carter.”
Evelyn looked confused.
“Who's Rachel?”
“My cousin.”
I showed Adrian the notebook.
Every RC entry suddenly had a possible meaning.
Rachel had visited our home eighteen months earlier.
She claimed she was passing through town.
She stayed one night.
That was approximately when the surveillance records began.
“Call her,” Daniel said.
I did.
Disconnected.
Adrian searched public records through one of his security contacts.
Rachel's apartment had been vacated six months earlier.
No forwarding address.
I sat back.
“She has the key.”
“Maybe,” Adrian said.
“Why else disappear?”
Evelyn looked troubled.
“Your aunt knew about the locket.”
I stared at her.
“Aunt Margaret?”
“She saw me put it around your neck.”
My aunt had practically raised me after my mother disappeared.
She told me Evelyn was selfish.
Unstable.
Dangerous.
She had supported every story my father told.
I grabbed my phone.
Margaret answered on the fourth ring.
“Claire?”
“Where is Rachel?”
Silence.
“Why?”
“Answer me.”
“I don't know.”
“Don't lie.”
“Claire, what's happening?”
“My mother is alive.”
Nothing.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Silence.
“You knew,” I whispered.
Margaret began crying.
“Oh, God.”
“You knew.”
“I wanted to tell you.”
“For twenty years?”
“It wasn't safe.”
“Where is Rachel?”
“I haven't seen her.”
“Where is the key?”
Her breathing stopped.
That was enough.
“You know about the key.”
“Claire, listen to me.”
“No. You listen. Someone broke into my house today. Someone has been watching me and my mother. If you know anything, tell me now.”
Margaret whispered, “Rachel found the key.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“When?”
“When you were children.”
“Where is it?”
“She kept it.”
“Why?”
“Because your father told her it was part of a treasure hunt.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Manipulation disguised as a game.
“Did she give it to him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I stopped her.”
I looked at Adrian.
“Where did you put it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I can't tell you on the phone.”
“Then come here.”
“No.”
“Margaret.”
“You need to leave that house.”
My skin went cold.
“Why?”
“Because Richard wasn't the only Bennett working with Victor Hale.”
“What does that mean?”
A sound came through the phone.
A door opening.
Margaret gasped.
“Someone's here.”
“Who?”
She whispered something I couldn't understand.
Then a man's voice.
“Margaret?”
The call disconnected.
I immediately dialed again.
No answer.
Adrian was already calling security.
Daniel stood.
“We need to go.”
“To Margaret?”
“Yes.”
Evelyn grabbed his sleeve.
“It could be a trap.”
“It probably is.”
I looked down at my phone.
A text appeared.
From Margaret.
Three words.
DON'T TRUST RACHEL.
Then another message arrived.
A photograph.
Margaret sitting in a chair.
Someone stood behind her.
Only one hand was visible on her shoulder.
On the hand was a ring.
I recognized it immediately.
It had belonged to my father.
May you like
And beneath the photograph was one sentence.
BRING THE LOCKET HOME.
