Chapter 5 - the room without a door
The eastern corridor had been closed to guests, but word of an electrical problem kept most people away. Julian followed Mrs. Bell through an old service staircase while Claire delayed Elena and Marcus upstairs.
The air changed as they descended.
The fresh scent of wedding flowers disappeared, replaced by damp stone and rust. At the bottom, Mrs. Bell stopped before a row of shelves filled with old wine bottles.
She removed one bottle and pressed the wooden panel behind it.
The shelves swung inward.
Julian stared into a narrow passage.
“You knew this was here.”
“I knew where it had been,” Mrs. Bell said. “I did not know your father left it unlocked.”
They entered sideways. The walls were so close that Julian’s shoulders nearly touched both sides. Thin metal pipes ran overhead.
After twenty feet, the passage divided.
“Which way leads beneath the chapel?”
Mrs. Bell pointed left.
“What is to the right?”
“The old sleeping rooms.”
Julian heard a faint sound from that direction.
A child coughing.
He turned right.
The passage ended at a brick wall. Fresh gray dust covered the floor, and several bricks had been recently replaced.
Julian struck the wall with his palm.
“Nora?”
The coughing stopped.
“It’s Julian,” he said. “I saw you at the chapel window.”
A whisper came through the bricks.
“Did she follow you?”
“No.”
“Is the man with her?”
“Marcus?”
Silence.
“Nora, step away from the wall.”
Julian seized an iron pipe lying on the floor and drove it between the new bricks. The mortar broke easily. Someone had intended the wall to appear sealed, not to remain strong.
Mrs. Bell helped remove the loosened bricks.
Behind them was a room no larger than a storage closet.
Nora sat in the corner.
The silver shoe from the chapel was missing from one foot. A thin blanket had been wrapped around her shoulders. Beside her were a bottle of water and a battery lantern.
Julian crawled through the opening.
“You’re safe.”
Nora shook her head.
“Not while she’s wearing the dress.”
“Which woman locked you here?”
“The one pretending to be Aunt Elena.”
Julian crouched before her.
“Is she Evelyn?”
Nora nodded.
“How do you know?”
“She smiles when she’s angry. Aunt Elena goes quiet.”
It was a child’s answer, but Julian remembered the woman in the bridal suite smiling as he questioned her.
“Where is Elena?”
Nora pointed upward.
“Inside the house.”
“Where?”
“I heard them say they moved her to the room without a door.”
Mrs. Bell inhaled sharply.
Julian looked back.
“You know it?”
“There was a punishment room at St. Agnes. It could only be reached through the walls.”
“Where is it?”
“No one knew. Children were taken there at night.”
Nora touched Julian’s cuff link.
Her eyes widened at the crescent-moon symbol.
“He wore that.”
“Who?”
“The man in the old pictures.”
“My father?”
“I don’t know his name.”
Nora crawled toward a loose brick and pulled out a small black device.
“I took this from Evelyn’s bag.”
It was a digital voice recorder.
Julian pressed the play button.
At first, there was only static.
Then Marcus’s voice emerged.
“The signatures are all we need. Once the marriage is registered, you control the foundation if anything happens to him.”
Evelyn answered.
“Nothing is going to happen to Julian until he opens the archive.”
“And after?”
A pause.
“After that, he becomes another Ashford who knew too much.”
Julian stopped the recording.
Mrs. Bell covered her mouth.
Nora looked toward the passage.
“She’s coming.”
Julian heard nothing.
Then a faint vibration moved through the pipes overhead.
A door had opened somewhere nearby.
Mrs. Bell pulled Nora through the hole.
Julian replaced two bricks to conceal their escape. They moved toward the main passage just as voices echoed from the stairs.
Marcus was speaking.
“The girl cannot have gone far.”
Evelyn answered from behind him.
“She knows the passages better than we do.”
Julian motioned for Mrs. Bell and Nora to remain still.
Through a gap in the old shelves, he watched Marcus enter the basement corridor.
Evelyn followed him.
She was now wearing her wedding gown.
In one hand, she held Nora’s second silver shoe.
“She left this beneath the chapel,” Evelyn said.
Marcus looked at the wall Julian had opened.
“What if she reached Julian?”
“Then we change the plan.”
“To what?”
May you like
Evelyn turned toward the darkness where Julian was hiding.
“We make him believe the real Elena is the dangerous one.”
