Chapter 3 - The Dead Man Below
For one impossible moment, no one spoke.
The man on the screen turned slightly toward the camera.
His face was thinner than Daniel remembered. A scar crossed his forehead and disappeared into his hairline. Tubes ran beneath his hospital gown. One hand rested motionless in his lap.
But it was Edward.
Alive.
Oliver pressed both palms to the monitor.
“Dad.”
The figure did not react.
“He cannot hear you,” Marcus said.
Daniel moved to the controls.
“Where is that room?”
“I have never seen it.”
“You manage security.”
“I manage the visible property.”
Daniel searched the monitor labels. Most displayed ordinary room names, but the feed showing Edward was marked SUBLEVEL C.
Blackwood Manor’s original plans included only one basement.
“What is Sublevel C?”
Marcus shook his head.
A pounding began beneath the attic hatch.
The guards had found the trunk.
Lucy stood behind Oliver, staring at the screen with a look Daniel could not understand.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“You knew,” Daniel said.
She nodded slowly.
“She takes me to him.”
Oliver turned.
“You saw Dad?”
Lucy’s eyes filled with tears.
“She said he was sleeping.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She said if I did, she would stop his medicine.”
Oliver stepped backward as though struck.
Daniel placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Lucy was trying to protect him.”
The pounding intensified.
The trunk shifted across the floor.
Marcus moved another cabinet in front of the hatch.
“We need a route down.”
Daniel studied the screens.
Vanessa had removed several folders from the library safe. She placed them inside a metal briefcase and approached the fireplace.
“She is destroying evidence.”
Marcus touched the control panel.
“I may be able to unlock the library.”
“Do it.”
He entered an override sequence.
ACCESS DENIED appeared across every screen.
“She isolated the main system.”
Oliver pointed toward the lower corner of the central monitor.
“What does that mean?”
A red timer had appeared beneath Edward’s image.
08:43.
It was counting down.
Marcus leaned closer.
“I do not know.”
Lucy began to shake.
“She used that clock before.”
“When?”
“When the nurse asked too many questions.”
Daniel knelt beside her.
“What happened when it reached zero?”
Lucy’s voice became barely audible.
“The nurse stopped coming.”
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“Can the ventilation system reach that room?”
“All sublevels would have independent airflow.”
“Could she shut it off?”
“Yes.”
The timer reached 08:11.
Daniel searched the surveillance room.
Blueprints covered one wall, but they showed only electrical routes. He found a cabinet filled with hard drives, recording equipment, medical files, and labeled flash drives.
One file bore Edward’s name.
He pulled it free.
Inside were medication charts, neurological assessments, and photographs documenting injuries from the car crash.
A private physician named Dr. Samuel Kessler had signed each page.
The newest report was dated two days earlier.
Edward was conscious but suffered severe aphasia and partial paralysis.
He had been alive for three years.
Vanessa had declared him dead, held a funeral, gained control of his estate, and imprisoned him beneath his own home.
Daniel turned another page.
His blood went cold.
The final document authorized termination of life-sustaining treatment.
It had been signed that morning.
The signature read Daniel Vale.
A perfect forgery.
The timer reached 07:32.
“Find the access tunnels,” he said.
Marcus examined the blueprints.
“There must be a service elevator, but it is not on these plans.”
Oliver moved through the room, opening drawers.
Lucy remained near the screen.
“He draws maps.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Edward?”
She nodded.
“With his finger. On the blanket.”
“What kind of maps?”
“Lines and circles. He gets angry when I don’t understand.”
She approached the desk and pulled a sheet of paper from beneath a keyboard.
With a pencil, she drew a rectangle, a long line, and three circles.
“He does this.”
Daniel stared.
It resembled the Vale family crest simplified into basic shapes.
A tower above three wells.
Their childhood home had contained a phrase their father repeated whenever showing visitors the old grounds.
Three wells beneath the tower.
Daniel looked toward the attic floor.
Blackwood Manor had been built on the foundations of a medieval estate. The central tower no longer existed, but the circular library occupied its original position.
The three circles might indicate hidden shafts beneath it.
“The library,” he said. “The entrance is in the library.”
Marcus nodded toward the screen.
“She is still there.”
Vanessa had opened the fireplace grate. Behind it was a steel incinerator.
She began feeding documents into the flames.
Daniel searched the controls for an audio channel.
He found one.
“Vanessa.”
On the library screen, she stopped.
Daniel continued.
“You forged my signature.”
She looked directly toward a camera hidden above the mantel.
“Did I?”
“You know forgery will not hold up once I testify.”
“That assumes you will testify.”
The timer reached 06:51.
Daniel kept his tone calm.
“You cannot leave. Police surround the property.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Do they?”
Another monitor flickered.
The outer gate opened.
A black armored vehicle approached the officers from behind.
Daniel looked at Marcus.
“Who is that?”
Marcus’s expression changed.
“Not ours.”
The vehicle stopped near the gate. Men in tactical gear stepped out, displaying credentials.
Federal insignia marked their jackets.
The local officers lowered their weapons.
Vanessa lifted the briefcase.
“You always thought this was about money,” she said through the intercom.
“What is it about?”
“Your brother learned the answer.”
“Then why is he alive?”
For the first time, her smile disappeared.
“Because he would not tell me where he put it.”
“What?”
She closed the fireplace.
“The ledger.”
Daniel remembered Edward’s final call.
He had spoken in broken sentences, breathing heavily.
Daniel, I found the names.
They are all connected.
The children are the key.
At the time, Daniel believed Edward was drunk or panicked.
Now the words returned with terrible clarity.
“What ledger?”
Vanessa stepped toward the library’s west wall.
“You will not find it before they find you.”
A panel opened behind her.
She disappeared into darkness.
The timer reached 05:58.
Marcus dragged the equipment cabinet away from the hatch.
The pounding stopped.
“That is not good,” he said.
A second later, smoke began seeping around the edges.
“They are burning through.”
Daniel searched the blueprints again.
A ventilation duct ran from the surveillance room toward the old chimney.
It was narrow, but large enough for the children.
He opened the grate.
“You first,” he told Oliver.
The boy looked toward Edward’s screen.
“We can’t leave him.”
“We are going to him.”
“You promise?”
Daniel met his eyes.
“Yes.”
Oliver entered the duct.
Lucy followed.
Daniel turned to Marcus.
“You go next.”
Marcus shook his head.
“I will delay them.”
“They will kill you.”
“I have spent four years following orders without asking what happened behind locked doors.” Marcus checked the charge on his weapon. “I should have asked.”
The timer reached 05:21.
Daniel handed him the medical file.
“Make sure the police get this.”
Marcus tucked it beneath his uniform.
“Go.”
Daniel entered the duct.
Behind him, the surveillance room door burst open.
Shouts filled the attic.
Marcus fired.
Daniel crawled after the children as smoke flooded the passage.
The duct sloped downward.
Oliver disappeared around a bend.
Then Daniel heard metal collapse.
The boy cried out.
Daniel crawled faster and emerged into a vertical shaft.
Oliver clung to a narrow rung with Lucy below him.
Far beneath them, a single light illuminated a concrete floor.
A red sign on the wall read SUBLEVEL A.
“Hold on,” Daniel called.
The timer was no longer visible, but he counted the remaining seconds in his mind.
Four minutes.
Perhaps less.
They descended.
When they reached Sublevel A, they found a corridor lined with sealed doors.
Most were marked with numbers.
One carried a child’s drawing of a yellow sun.
Lucy pointed toward it.
“That was my first room.”
Daniel tried the handle.
Locked.
A speaker crackled overhead.
But it was not Vanessa’s voice.
A man spoke.
Calm.
Educated.
Unfamiliar.
“Mr. Vale, I suggest you stop moving.”
Daniel looked up.
“Who are you?”
“My name will not help you.”
“Are you the one killing my brother?”
“No. I am the one giving you a chance to save the children.”
Oliver stepped closer to Daniel.
The voice continued.
“At the end of this corridor is a red door. Behind it is an elevator that will take Oliver and Lucy safely outside.”
“And Edward?”
“Your brother cannot be saved in the time remaining.”
“That is convenient.”
“It is factual.”
Daniel looked toward the far end of the corridor.
A red door stood beneath an illuminated exit sign.
“What happens if we go the other way?”
“You will reach Sublevel C after the oxygen supply has been terminated.”
Lucy gripped Daniel’s hand.
The unseen man said, “Choose carefully. A dead brother cannot forgive you, but two living children might.”
Daniel studied the numbered doors.
A soft tapping came from behind Door 6.
Three taps.
Pause.
Two taps.
Pause.
Eight taps.
Lucy heard it too.
Her eyes widened.
“Dad’s numbers.”
Six.
Two.
Eight.
June twenty-eighth.
Edward’s birthday.
Daniel approached Door 6.
The speaker voice sharpened.
“Do not open that room.”
Daniel tried the handle.
Unlocked.
Inside was a small medical storage area.
On the wall, someone had scratched an arrow pointing downward.
Beneath a cabinet was a removable floor panel.
The tapping continued through the pipes.
Edward was guiding them.
Daniel opened the panel.
A ladder descended into darkness.
The speaker said, “You are making the wrong choice.”
Daniel helped Lucy onto the ladder.
“I have had eight years of people making choices for me.”
Oliver followed her.
Daniel looked once toward the security camera.
“Tonight, I make my own.”
He descended and pulled the panel closed.
Above him, mechanical locks engaged throughout Sublevel A.
May you like
The unknown man spoke one final sentence before the sound faded.
“You have no idea what your brother was hiding from you.”
