Chapter 10 - THE SECOND WITNESS
We reached the mansion at eleven minutes past noon.
Smoke rose from the west wing.
The front gate stood open. Two security vehicles had been pushed into the driveway. The main doors were unlocked, and no one answered the radio.
Grace jumped from the car before it stopped.
“Mia!”
I grabbed her hand as she ran toward the house.
“Stay behind me.”
“My child is inside.”
“Then you stay behind me so I can reach her.”
We entered through the kitchen. Smoke crawled along the ceiling. A fire alarm screamed from somewhere above us.
The safe apartment door was open.
The guard assigned to Mia lay unconscious beside the elevator.
Grace dropped to her knees.
“Mia!”
From the second floor came a child's cry.
We ran.
The hallway was filling with smoke. A curtain burned near the staircase. Owen's lieutenant staggered from the library, coughing.
“They took the ledger,” he said.
“Where is Mia?”
“Upper hall.”
Grace pushed past him.
I followed.
We found Mia beside the blue door, holding Lily against her chest. Flames crawled across the carpet behind her. The nursery stood open, and the photographs on the wall were burning one by one.
“Mia!” Grace screamed.
The child turned. “The door is locked!”
I reached her and took Lily. Grace lifted Mia.
The fire blocked the main corridor.
“Back to the library,” I said.
“The library is burning too,” Owen's lieutenant shouted.
The house groaned.
I remembered Daniel's words.
Three escape routes.
The library held the ledger. The blue room held witnesses. The nursery held proof.
The third route had to be nearby.
Mia pointed at the floor.
“Papa said the house remembers.”
“What does that mean?”
“The stairs under the stars.”
I looked toward the nursery ceiling. The mural showed dozens of painted stars. One star was darker than the others.
I pressed it.
The floor beneath the crib opened.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
“Take the baby,” I told Grace.
She passed Lily to me and carried Mia. We descended as the fire roared above us.
The stairs led to a brick tunnel beneath the house. The air was cooler. Smoke followed us through the opening, but the passage remained clear.
Behind us, something collapsed with a violent crash.
Grace clutched my arm.
“Daniel said the second witness was your aunt.”
“I heard him.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe this house has lied to me for most of my life.”
Mia whispered, “The knocking is close.”
We followed the sound through the tunnel.
Three knocks came from a metal door.
I opened it.
Inside sat an elderly woman in a wheelchair.
She had silver hair, a blanket across her legs, and a pistol resting in her lap. Her eyes were the same dark gray as mine.
She stared at me.
“Adrian,” she said.
I could not speak.
The woman smiled sadly.
“You have your father's face.”
Grace pulled Mia close.
“Who are you?”
The woman looked at the baby, then at the smoke drifting through the tunnel.
“My name is Elena Duca.”
My father's sister.
The aunt who, according to every family record, had died before I was born.
“You have been living under my house.”
“I have been living under the house your father stole from me.”
She gestured toward a second chair.
“Bring the children inside.”
I did not move.
“Why should I trust you?”
Elena's smile faded.
“You should not. Trust is a luxury your family spent before you were old enough to object.”
Behind us, the tunnel filled with smoke.
Grace pushed past me, carrying Mia into the room.
“If you want to argue, do it after my children can breathe.”
Elena nodded toward the wall.
I brought Lily inside.
The door closed, sealing out the smoke.
Elena watched Mia with an expression I could not read.
“You are Daniel's daughter.”
Mia stepped closer. “How do you know my papa?”
“Because I taught him where the walls were hollow.”
“Why did you hide?”
Elena looked at me.
“Because your grandfather ordered my husband killed and took control of this house. When I tried to expose him, he locked me in the tunnels. Daniel found me years later.”
I felt the room contract.
“How long have you been here?”
“Twenty-six years.”
“And no one knew?”
“Grace knew.”
I turned toward Grace.
She lowered her head.
“I found Elena when I began working here,” she said. “She was sick. Daniel had been bringing her food. After he disappeared, I continued.”
“You brought Mia into a house containing a hidden woman, secret tunnels, and criminal records?”
“I had nowhere else to go.”
Elena interrupted. “Do not blame Grace for surviving your family's choices.”
The words cut because they were deserved.
A distant explosion shook the tunnel.
Elena looked toward the ceiling.
“The west wing is gone.”
“Victor?” I asked.
“Victor took the ledger. Clara took the evidence from the nursery. They came for the third room.”
“What is the third room?”
Elena pointed behind me.
“You are standing in it.”
I looked at the walls.
Shelves of old ledgers lined one side. A radio transmitter sat beside a stack of batteries. On the table lay a collection of tapes, photographs, and sealed envelopes.
Elena lifted one cassette.
“Your grandfather recorded every meeting. He believed memories were unreliable, but machines could not betray him.”
“He was wrong.”
“He was wrong about many things.”
Mia pointed to the tapes.
“Which one has Papa?”
Elena looked at her.
“The one marked April.”
Mia selected a tape from the shelf.
I found an old player and pressed the button.
Static filled the room.
Then Daniel's voice emerged.
“If you are hearing this, Elena is alive, and Adrian has finally found the room.”
Grace began to cry silently.
Daniel continued.
“The person who betrayed us is not Victor Hale. Victor is greedy, but he is being directed. The order came from someone who has been inside the Duca family longer than any of us.”
The tape crackled.
“The name is—”
A sharp bang struck the metal door.
Everyone froze.
Another bang.
Elena reached for her pistol.
Mia whispered, “Two knocks.”
The door began to open.
Victor Hale stood in the gap, holding the ledger in one hand and a gun in the other.
Behind him stood Clara.
But it was not Victor who made my blood turn cold.
May you like
It was the man standing behind them.
My father.
