Chapter 12 - The Room Beneath the House
Marcus fired at the lock mechanism.
The bullets ricocheted from reinforced steel.
Smoke thickened near the ceiling.
Ortiz covered her mouth.
“Ventilation source?”
Daniel pointed toward the eastern wall.
“There.”
Marcus and his agents attacked the grate with tools.
Nathan struggled to stand.
“He wants the files in this room destroyed.”
“What files?” I asked.
He pointed to the table.
“Proof of who founded Halcyon.”
I opened the top folder.
Inside were incorporation records, private agreements, and photographs.
The earliest showed six men in 1979.
Arthur Mercer was not among them.
Neither was Richard Beaumont.
At the center stood a younger man with pale eyes and a narrow face.
The caption identified him as Gideon Vane.
Silas’s father.
Another photograph showed my grandfather.
Another showed Daniel’s grandfather.
Halcyon had begun one generation earlier than we believed.
Daniel pulled open the steel trunk Nathan had occupied.
A false bottom concealed stacks of microfilm.
“This is what they wanted to burn,” he said.
Smoke continued flooding the room.
Evelyn found a mechanical wheel behind the shelves.
She turned it.
Nothing happened.
Nathan limped toward her.
“Both wheels. There is another on the opposite wall.”
Daniel found it.
Together, they turned.
A section of stone opened, revealing a narrow tunnel.
We carried the files and microfilm through.
The passage led beneath the east lawn and emerged inside the ruined greenhouse.
Rain struck our faces as we climbed out.
Behind us, smoke rose from the house.
Not from the bedroom.
From the walls.
Fire traveled through hidden channels inside the estate.
Whoever designed the system had prepared Blackthorn House to destroy its own secrets.
Fire engines approached.
Marcus cleared them to enter.
As crews attacked the flames, Ortiz questioned Nathan inside an ambulance.
“Who put you in the trunk?”
“A man named Gideon Vane.”
“Silas’s father?”
“Yes.”
“He should be dead.”
“He paid someone else to be buried under his name.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Six months ago.”
“Why?”
“He contacted me after Claire mentioned Northbridge.”
I stood outside the ambulance.
“You sold him information.”
Nathan looked at me through one swollen eye.
“I thought he wanted documents proving our father cheated me.”
“So you helped him target me.”
“I helped him access acquisition schedules. I did not know he planned to kill you.”
“When did you find out?”
“At the depot attack.”
“You called me afterward.”
“I was trying to warn you.”
“You demanded information for money.”
His face twisted.
“I did not know who was listening.”
“Then why keep negotiating?”
“Because fear does not erase habit.”
At least he was honest.
Daniel asked, “What does Gideon want?”
Nathan looked toward the burning house.
“The original ledger.”
“The archive is at Claire’s office.”
“That is Arthur’s copy. Gideon wants the founding ledger.”
“Was it in the basement?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
Nathan looked at me.
“Your mother hid it.”
My mother had died when I was fourteen.
I thought of the letter, the glass key, the external suspension protocol.
“Where?”
“She divided it into three parts.”
“Who has them?”
“Arthur received one. Sofia Ortiz received one. Evelyn received one.”
We all turned toward Evelyn.
She stood in the rain beneath a firefighter’s blanket.
Her face became unreadable.
Daniel approached her.
“Do you have part of the ledger?”
“No.”
Nathan laughed painfully.
“She lies even when the house is burning.”
Evelyn looked at him with contempt.
“You sold your sister for money.”
“And you sold your daughter-in-law for your son.”
Neither accusation could be denied.
I stepped between them.
“Where is it, Evelyn?”
She stared at the flames.
“Arthur gave me a brass key before he died.”
“To what?”
“A deposit box.”
“Where?”
“Geneva.”
“Did you open it?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
“A section of handwritten accounts and a letter from Isabelle.”
“You kept this for twenty years?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
She looked at Daniel.
“In the only place Silas would never search.”
Daniel understood before I did.
His hand moved to his chest.
“My father’s grave.”
Evelyn nodded.
“I placed the ledger beneath Arthur’s coffin before the burial vault was sealed.”
Ortiz said, “We need an exhumation order.”
“No time,” Nathan replied.
Everyone looked at him.
“Gideon knows.”
“How?”
“He forced me to tell him.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“You knew?”
“He had a knife against my throat.”
“You should have let him use it.”
Daniel grabbed his mother’s arm.
“Enough.”
Nathan looked at me.
“He is going to the cemetery tonight.”
Marcus checked his phone.
The estate fire had severed road access on the east side. Police units were still arriving.
The cemetery was forty-five minutes away.
We left immediately.
Rain flooded the roads.
When we reached the Mercer family plot, the gates had been cut.
Arthur’s grave stood open.
The stone vault had been broken.
The coffin lid was raised.
Evelyn ran toward it.
Daniel stopped her before she reached the edge.
Inside the vault, the brass container was gone.
In its place lay a fresh white envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Claire.
Inside was a single photograph.
It showed my mother standing beside Gideon Vane on the day she supposedly died.
May you like
On the back were seven words.
ASK EVELYN WHO WAS ON THE BOAT.
