Chapter 4 - What Lily Heard Before Ethan Arrived
Ethan entered 0719.
The keypad flashed green.
A lock disengaged.
Eleanor grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
He pulled away.
“You’ve said that enough today.”
He opened the steel door.
Darkness.
A narrow staircase descended inside the wall.
Not a room.
A passage.
Cool air rose from below.
Ethan switched on his phone flashlight.
Lily held his hand.
“No.”
Ethan crouched.
“You stay here.”
“With her?”
Lily looked at Eleanor.
The fear in that glance hurt Eleanor visibly.
Ethan hesitated.
Then Eleanor stepped backward.
“I’ll go first.”
He looked at her.
“If something happens, Lily stays with you.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
Eleanor looked directly at him.
“But right now you know exactly what I’m capable of. You don’t know what’s down there.”
That was difficult to argue with.
Ethan kept Lily behind him and descended.
The passage ended in a small reinforced chamber.
Empty.
A chair stood in the center.
Leather restraints hung open from its arms.
A camera faced it.
On the floor lay a wedding ring.
Ethan picked it up.
His.
Inside the band were the initials E.M.
Ethan Mercer.
Eleanor Mercer.
Their marriage reduced to two letters engraved twelve years earlier.
Lily stared at the chair.
“That’s where the lady was crying.”
Ethan turned.
“What lady?”
Lily covered her mouth.
Eleanor crouched.
“When did you hear her?”
“Before Daddy came.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You told me not to come downstairs.”
Lily had been in Eleanor’s bedroom when she heard a woman speaking through an air vent.
Not screaming.
Crying.
Then repeating one sentence.
“Please tell Ethan I didn’t leave.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
Eleanor saw his face.
“You recognize that?”
He did.
But he did not answer.
On the wall behind the chair were dozens of small holes.
Ethan shone his light through one.
The foyer.
Another.
The staircase.
Another.
The balcony.
The hidden chamber had been designed to observe the mansion without being seen.
Eleanor examined a table.
A syringe wrapper.
Plastic ties.
A bottle of water.
And a printed schedule.
She picked it up.
11:41 — E.M. enters property.
11:43 — visual confrontation begins.
11:45 — fall event.
11:46 — paternal intervention.
11:48 — secondary confrontation.
11:50 — wall access.
Ethan checked the time.
11:51.
Everything had happened almost exactly according to schedule.
Except one line had been crossed out.
11:45 — SAFETY LINE ENGAGES.
Beneath it, handwritten:
REMOVE FAILSAFE.
Eleanor stared.
“I didn’t write that.”
Ethan believed her.
Not because he trusted her.
Because the handwriting was blocky, deliberate and unfamiliar.
The schedule continued.
11:52 — SUBJECT E.M. ENTERS LOWER PASSAGE.
Ethan looked at the time again.
11:52.
A heavy metallic sound came from above.
The steel door slammed shut.
Lily screamed.
Ethan raced up the stairs and pushed.
Locked.
“Move.”
Eleanor joined him.
Nothing.
Then lights came on inside the passage.
Not emergency lights.
Bright fluorescent strips.
Someone had expected them to be trapped there.
A monitor on the wall activated.
Security footage appeared.
Live.
The mansion foyer.
Empty.
Then a man walked calmly into frame.
Brown shoes.
Dark trousers.
Gray coat.
His face remained just outside the camera angle.
He stopped beside the fallen American flag.
Bent down.
Picked up the broken microphone from Eleanor’s dress.
Then looked directly toward the hidden camera.
“You’re four minutes ahead,” he said.
Ethan pounded the door.
“Who are you?”
The man did not answer.
Instead, he placed something on the marble.
A framed photograph.
Then walked away.
The camera zoomed automatically.
Ethan saw himself in the picture.
Much younger.
Beside him stood another woman.
A brunette.
Smiling.
Eleanor whispered:
“Who is she?”
Lily answered softly.
“The lady from behind the wall.”
Ethan could no longer avoid the name.
“Claire.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Who is Claire?”
May you like
Ethan stared at the photograph of the woman he had spent seven years believing was dead.
“My first wife.”
