HE CAME HOME EARLYS

The hidden passage smelled of dust and old wood.

David closed the panel behind them just as Marcus forced his way into the library.

They heard furniture overturn and glass break on the other side of the wall.

Sarah led the way through the narrow corridor using the light from David’s phone. Victoria followed her, and David remained at the rear.

“Keep moving,” he whispered.

The passage turned sharply and descended beneath the staircase. David remembered playing inside it as a child, though his father had told him it was only an old service route used by the original mansion staff.

Henry had forbidden him from entering without permission.

David had assumed it was because the wooden steps were unsafe.

Now he wondered what else had been hidden there.

“Your father did not control Eleanor Price,” Sarah said quietly.

Victoria answered before David could.

“You do not know what he controlled.”

“I was married to him.”

“You were married to the man he pretended to be.”

Sarah stopped.

David nearly collided with Victoria.

“Keep moving,” he repeated.

Sarah continued down.

Victoria’s voice became sharper.

“Henry created accounts under deceased identities. Marcus found records proving it.”

“Marcus manufactures proof,” Sarah said.

“He showed me transfers signed by Henry.”

“Where?”

“In the room beneath the wine cellar.”

Sarah stopped again.

This time, David placed a hand on her shoulder.

“What room?”

“I do not know,” she said.

Victoria gave a bitter laugh.

“She knows.”

Sarah turned around.

The phone light illuminated the deep lines of exhaustion on her face.

“I know there was a locked storage area beneath the cellar. Henry said it contained old electrical equipment. I never entered.”

“Because you never questioned him,” Victoria said.

“I trusted him.”

“And now your son will lose everything because of that trust.”

David held up a hand.

“Victoria, you will tell me exactly how you found Marcus.”

“He found me.”

“When?”

“Three months after our wedding.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“Because he knew who I was.”

“Eleanor Price?”

Victoria looked away.

“My real name is Victoria Lane.”

“Colonel Pierce has records saying it was an alias.”

“Pierce is wrong.”

“Then explain the photograph.”

“What photograph?”

David described the younger woman in the investigation file.

Victoria’s expression changed.

“That was my sister.”

Sarah looked back.

“You said you had no family.”

“I said my family was dead.”

“Was Eleanor your sister?”

“Yes.”

David studied Victoria’s face, searching for signs of another lie.

“How did she die?”

“In a car fire, according to the government.”

“You do not believe that?”

“I saw her two years later.”

The words seemed to tighten the passage around them.

“Where?” David asked.

“At your father’s funeral.”

Sarah’s breath caught.

Victoria continued.

“She stood across the cemetery wearing a black veil. I followed her, but she disappeared before I reached the road.”

“You had not met me then.”

“No.”

“How did you know it was my father’s funeral?”

“Because three days later, I received a package containing his obituary, your photograph and a copy of my sister’s death certificate.”

“From whom?”

“Marcus.”

A crash echoed above them.

Marcus had found the passage entrance.

David urged the women forward.

The corridor ended at a steel door hidden behind the wine cellar shelves. Sarah pressed an old switch, and the door opened into a windowless underground room.

Rows of filing cabinets lined the walls.

A large wooden desk stood in the center.

On it rested a reel-to-reel recorder, a locked metal box and a framed photograph of Henry Mercer beside Colonel Aaron Pierce.

David stepped closer.

The photograph appeared to have been taken decades earlier.

Behind Henry and Pierce stood a woman with dark hair.

Victoria touched the glass.

“That is Eleanor.”

David examined the handwritten date on the frame.

It was taken ten years before Eleanor’s reported death.

Sarah opened the desk drawer and found a tape labeled with David’s name.

The writing belonged to Henry.