Chapter 7 - Beneath the Rose Wall
The steel fire door opened outward. Harold Vance did not need to enter. He only needed to wait.
"Mr. Vance," Leah called, holding her phone near the door, "state police know you are here."
"State police know I am administering an estate."
"They will also know you threatened us."
"I asked you to accept a contract. Lawyers should be precise."
His footsteps moved away.
Daniel tried the light switch. Nothing. The laptop battery cast a pale rectangle across four frightened faces. On its screen, the intercepted audio file still existed. Daniel copied it to two drives while Leah sent the compressed recording through her phone. The basement walls reduced the signal to a single bar. The message stalled at ninety-four percent.
"He may cut the network," Daniel said.
"He may cut more than that," Wyatt replied.
The smell of smoke reached them a minute later.
It came through the ventilation grille near the ceiling, thin at first, then bitter enough to sting. Sadie stared at the shelves of paint thinner and furniture oil stored along the far wall.
"The blue room will burn with her inside it," she said. "They are starting here instead."
Daniel ran to the oldest fuse cabinet. He tore away a plywood backing and exposed a rectangle of crumbling brick. "This house had coal chutes before electricity. The plans show one behind this wall."
"Does it lead outside?" Leah asked.
"It leads under the garden if it was not filled."
Wyatt took a rusted iron bar from the tool bench. Together, he and Daniel struck the mortar. Smoke thickened along the ceiling. Sadie wrapped her sleeve over her mouth and helped Leah push the chemical cans away from the heat.
On the third blow, three bricks collapsed inward. Cold air rushed through the opening.
They widened the gap until Daniel could crawl through. Leah followed, then Sadie. Wyatt came last, pulling the plywood into place behind them. The passage was barely four feet high and lined with wet stone. Their phone lights caught old coal dust, roots, and recent shoe prints.
"Someone still uses it," Wyatt said.
The smoke did not follow. The tunnel divided after twenty yards. One branch sloped toward the abandoned greenhouse. The other ran south beneath the rose garden.
Sadie chose south.
They crawled until their knees were soaked. Overhead, the faint vibration of footsteps crossed the lawn. At the end of the tunnel, a newer brick wall blocked the way. Its center had been repaired with mortar much paler than the rest.
Daniel touched it. "This section was opened recently."
Wyatt raised the iron bar again.
"Wait." Sadie removed Eleanor's photograph from her pocket. The black cross marked the same location. "The safe may be behind it. Do not destroy what is inside."
They loosened the bricks one at a time. Behind them stood a narrow steel cabinet built into the foundation. Eleanor's brass key opened the upper compartment.
Inside were dozens of employee pension statements, a safety deposit receipt, three passports bearing Mara's photograph under different names, and a blue plastic drive. The lower compartment contained a bloodstained white scarf sealed in a bag.
Leah read the safety deposit receipt. "The box was rented by Eleanor and Luis Ruiz."
Daniel took it from her. The date was six months after his father lost his house.
"He helped her," he said. "All those years, he knew."
"Maybe he was trying to repair what happened," Sadie said.
"Repair does not return the years my mother spent cleaning offices at night."
"No. It does not."
The blue drive required a password. On its label, Eleanor had written the three piano notes in musical notation. Sadie entered the corresponding letters.
The first folder held bank transfers. The second held photographs of pension records and forged board approvals. The third was named MARA RIVER.
Wyatt opened it.
A grainy video showed Rosemont's garage at 9:16 p.m. on the night Mara vanished. Mara was alive, struggling between Everett and a younger Harold Vance. Celeste opened the rear door of a black sedan. Thomas Cole stood near the gate, arguing with someone outside the camera's view.
The video had no sound. A fourth figure entered from the left, visible only from shoulder to wrist. A silver ring flashed on one hand. The figure struck Thomas and dragged him out of frame.
Everett and Vance forced Mara into the sedan.
Celeste looked directly at the camera and smiled.
Sadie's stomach turned. That smile was not identical to the laugh in the garden, but it came from the same hidden place.
The video ended before the car left.
"Who is the fourth person?" Leah asked.
Wyatt froze the final frame. The ring was engraved with a winged letter V.
"V.H.," Sadie said.
A loud metallic click came from the other side of the cabinet. The blue drive disappeared from the laptop screen. Somewhere above ground, a motor began to turn.
Water poured into the tunnel through vents in the ceiling.
"Flood control," Daniel shouted. "They opened the garden cistern."
The water reached their ankles in seconds. Wyatt packed the documents into Daniel's waterproof tool bag. Daniel pulled the blue drive free and sealed it inside. They retreated toward the junction, fighting the rising current.
Sadie's dress snagged on a rusted bracket. Water climbed to her waist. She pulled once, twice, and felt the fabric tighten around her legs.
Wyatt turned back.
"Go," she shouted. "Cut it."
He tore the blue skirt with the edge of the iron bar and lifted her over the bracket. A surge knocked Leah down. Daniel caught her by the collar and dragged her toward the greenhouse branch.
They emerged beneath a rotted potting bench as water exploded from the old coal chute behind them. Outside, rain sprinklers covered the lawn in artificial silver. Guests arriving for a wedding menu tasting watched four soaked people crawl from the abandoned greenhouse.
Celeste stood on the terrace with a glass of champagne.
"There you are," she called. "We were beginning to worry."
Sirens sounded beyond the gates. Leah's stalled message had finally sent.
Celeste lifted her glass slightly and looked at Sadie over its rim. Her eyes moved to the waterproof bag in Daniel's hand.
Then every sprinkler stopped.
May you like
"You have found the cabinet," she said so softly only Sadie could hear. "Now you have five days left to regret it."
