Chapter 10 - The Tunnel Beneath Grandmother’s House
Oliver refused to let go of Daniel’s sleeve.
“They told me my name was Jamie,” he said. “But Luke said I should remember my real name.”
“You are Oliver Grant,” Daniel told him. “The police have been looking for you.”
“My mom can’t look for me.”
“I know. But other people never stopped.”
Oliver looked toward the hidden passage.
“Luke said his dad never stops either.”
Paramedics checked Oliver while officers entered the tunnel beneath Evelyn’s house.
Daniel wanted to follow, but Cole made him remain with the boy until they understood what was below.
Oliver explained that he had been kept in several different rooms during the past eight months. He was rarely alone, but the other children changed.
Sometimes there were two.
Sometimes five.
Adults taught them new last names and stories about families they had never met.
Oliver had learned to remain silent.
“The gray lady said being quiet makes you safe,” he whispered.
“Evelyn said that?”
Oliver nodded.
“What happened tonight?”
“She brought Luke to the camp. He found the phone and called you. Then the tall man took us underground.”
“Amos?”
“The one with the scar.”
“How did you reach this house?”
“There are carts in the tunnels. Luke made the lights go off. He told me to run when the doors opened.”
“Luke helped you escape?”
“He said you would find the dinosaur, but we had to make wrong footprints first.”
Oliver had taken the tracker toward the water tower, tied it to the rope and then followed a tunnel to Evelyn’s house. Luke remained behind to make Amos believe both boys were together.
Daniel felt both pride and fear.
Luke was clever.
But he was still five.
“Did you see where they took him?”
Oliver pointed to the brass key in Daniel’s hand.
“The red door.”
Cole returned from the tunnel entrance.
“It leads toward the lake, but part of it collapsed years ago. We found rail tracks and a small electric cart.”
“Rebecca’s photograph shows a red door in a hillside.”
“We need to locate it.”
Oliver studied the photograph.
“That’s not a hill.”
Daniel looked at him.
“What is it?”
“It’s the side of the dam.”
Lake Briar had been created by a small hydroelectric dam constructed nearly a century earlier. Most of the original maintenance tunnels were sealed when the system was modernized.
Cole contacted the dam authority.
An engineer confirmed that an abandoned access door existed on the western side, half hidden by trees.
It had once been painted red.
The team drove toward the dam.
Oliver remained with a child protection officer, but before Daniel left, he gave him Luke’s blue crayon drawing from the chapel.
“Luke told me to give you this if I got out.”
Daniel turned it over.
On the back, Luke had drawn three people holding hands.
A tall man.
A small boy.
A woman wearing a blue coat.
Above them, he had drawn a silver bracelet.
Daniel did not understand how Luke knew what Rebecca had been wearing.
When they reached the western side of the dam, the red door was open.
Inside, the tunnel split in two.
One route descended toward the machinery rooms.
The other followed old rail tracks beneath the lake.
Daniel used the brass key on a locked control box.
It opened.
Inside was a cassette recorder protected in a plastic bag.
There was also a note in Rebecca’s handwriting.
Daniel, if you found this, Evelyn has made a mistake. She believes the key opens the final room. It does not. It opens the truth.
The cassette began playing automatically.
May you like
Rebecca’s voice said, “Pastor Vale did not create the network. He inherited it.”
A gunshot echoed deeper in the tunnel.
