Chapter 6 - THE FIRE IN THE EAST WING
Emergency lights flickered on.
Smoke began seeping beneath the doors.
“Fire!” Ellen shouted.
Julian rushed to the entrance, but the brass handles would not move.
“They’ve chained the doors.”
Sebastian backed away from the smoke.
“This house has automatic fire controls.”
“Someone disabled them,” Arthur said.
Celeste ran to a cabinet and pulled out a ceremonial sword displayed above the fireplace.
She smashed the window with its handle.
Cold evening air poured inside.
The library was on the second floor.
Below them, stone paving surrounded the west terrace.
“Too far to jump,” Ellen said.
“There’s another exit,” Celeste replied.
She pushed aside a bookcase, revealing a narrow servants’ passage.
Sebastian looked stunned.
“How did you know that was there?”
“I didn’t.”
Celeste stared into the dark opening.
“I remembered.”
They entered the passage as smoke filled the library.
Julian led with a flashlight. Ivy stayed between Celeste and Ellen. Arthur followed. Sebastian came last.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one person. Dust covered the floor, except for a line of fresh footprints.
“Someone used this recently,” Julian said.
The passage descended behind the walls.
As they moved, Ivy heard a metallic sound ahead.
A door closed.
Julian reached the bottom and forced it open.
They emerged inside the old greenhouse.
Broken glass panels allowed smoke to drift upward into the night. Withered vines hung from iron frames.
Margaret had told Ivy to meet her there.
A lantern burned on the floor.
Beside it lay the missing photograph.
“Margaret was here,” Ivy said.
Julian searched behind the planting tables.
Celeste found a bloodstained handkerchief tied to a pipe.
Embroidered in one corner were the initials M. V.
“There,” Ellen said.
The rear greenhouse door stood partly open.
Outside, security guards and firefighters rushed toward the mansion.
Julian radioed his team and ordered them to secure the estate.
The fire was quickly contained. It had started in the east wing near the hidden room and damaged several old records.
The library had not burned. Smoke bombs had been placed outside its doors to force the occupants toward the servants’ passage.
“Someone wanted us in the greenhouse,” Julian said.
Arthur picked up the photograph.
“There’s writing beneath the frame.”
A loose plank had been marked with chalk.
Celeste knelt.
The message contained only six words.
THE DEAD GIRL LIVES BELOW THE CHAPEL.
Sebastian read it over her shoulder.
“There is no chapel.”
Celeste looked toward the northern edge of the estate.
“Yes, there is.”
Beyond the gardens stood a ruined stone building hidden by trees.
“I remember bells,” she said. “And a woman singing beneath the floor.”
Sebastian seized her arm.
“You remember dreams.”
Celeste pulled free.
“Every time I remember something, you tell me it was a dream.”
“Because Eleanor saved you after a traumatic childhood.”
“She stole me.”
“You have no idea what happened.”
“Then tell me.”
Sebastian looked at Ivy.
For a second, his anger gave way to fear.
“Dr. Vale was not the man you think he was.”
“No one has told us what to think,” Ivy said.
“He created something dangerous. Something governments and corporations were willing to kill for.”
“What?”
Sebastian looked toward the burning east wing.
“The reason your parents died.”
A firefighter approached Julian.
“Detective, we found a person inside the old service elevator.”
“Margaret?”
The firefighter removed his helmet.
“No. A man.”
“Is he alive?”
“Barely.”
“Who is he?”
“He says his name is Thomas Reed.”
Ellen went pale.
Ivy turned toward her foster mother.
“Reed?”
Ellen’s lips trembled.
May you like
Thomas Reed was her husband.
The man she had told Ivy died ten years ago.
