Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BENEATH THE HOUSE
-2
For three full seconds, the monitoring room was completely dark.
Then emergency lights glowed red along the floor.
Chadworth turned on Marcus.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bring the system back.”
“I’m trying.”
Marcus moved to the secondary console.
Chadworth reached for the radio on the desk.
Marcus caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
Chadworth stared at the hand touching him.
Marcus released him immediately.
“Sir, if someone deliberately killed the feeds, using the internal radios could tell them exactly where you are.”
“Someone?”
Marcus looked toward the black monitors.
“You heard Sabina scream.”
“And my daughters are upstairs.”
“I know.”
Chadworth opened the door.
“Then this conversation is over.”
He moved through the dark service hallway with Marcus following close behind.
The mansion felt different now.
Not like the home Chadworth had lived in for years.
Like a structure hiding things from him.
Every portrait seemed to watch.
Every closed door looked suspicious.
When he reached the main staircase, he could hear Gemma crying upstairs.
He ran.
Lorelai opened the bedroom door before he reached it.
The moment she saw him, her expression changed from fear to complete disbelief.
“Daddy?”
Gemma pushed past her.
Chadworth dropped to his knees as both girls collided with him.
He held them so tightly Gemma squeaked.
“You came back.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t in Canada?”
“No.”
Lorelai stepped away first.
Her eyes searched his face.
“You were watching.”
It was not a question.
Chadworth looked at her.
“How did you know?”
Lorelai looked toward the hallway.
“Rosamund told us that if things ever got very bad, we should act normal until you saw.”
His stomach tightened.
“Until I saw what?”
Neither girl answered.
Marcus appeared behind him.
Lorelai’s face went blank.
It happened instantly.
Chadworth noticed.
He stood.
“Marcus, downstairs.”
“Sir—”
“Now.”
Marcus hesitated before walking away.
Chadworth closed the bedroom door.
“What is it?”
Lorelai glanced toward the door.
“Is he gone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
Chadworth had never heard his daughter speak about Marcus that way.
“Yes.”
She went to the bed and reached beneath the mattress.
From underneath it she removed a tiny plastic pouch.
Inside was a memory card.
Chadworth stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Rosamund gave it to me.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“She said if she disappeared, I had to give it to you.”
The air seemed to leave the room.
“Disappeared?”
Gemma began crying again.
Lorelai looked angry now.
“She said not to tell you until you came home when you weren’t supposed to.”
Chadworth tried to understand the sentence.
“You mean tonight?”
“She said if you ever pretended to go somewhere and came back secretly, it meant you were finally suspicious enough to believe us.”
Believe us.
The words cut deeper than anything Sabina had said.
“You tried to tell me?”
Lorelai’s eyes filled with tears.
“Three times.”
Chadworth remembered fragments.
Lorelai asking whether Sabina had to attend their school recital.
Gemma refusing to stay home when Rosamund took a day off.
A strange conversation at breakfast when Lorelai had said, “Dad, do adults ever lie because they know you’ll believe them?”
He had laughed.
He had kissed her forehead.
He had said, “Everybody lies sometimes.”
Then his phone rang and he walked away.
He felt suddenly ashamed to be standing in front of them.
“What did Sabina do?”
Lorelai shook her head.
“You have to watch the card.”
“What did she do?”
“Daddy.”
Her voice broke.
“Please watch it first.”
Chadworth put the card in his pocket.
“Where is Rosamund?”
Gemma pointed toward the floor.
“Downstairs.”
He knew exactly what she meant.
The hidden room.
“Stay here.”
“No!”
Gemma grabbed him.
He crouched again.
“I’m not leaving the house.”
“That’s what Mommy said.”
Chadworth went still.
Their mother, Evelyn Prescott, had died four years earlier.
A highway accident on a rainy night.
Her car had gone through a barrier.
The police called it tragic.
Unavoidable.
Sabina had entered his life eighteen months later.
“What did you say?”
Gemma looked confused by his reaction.
“Mommy said she wasn’t leaving the house.”
Lorelai turned sharply toward her.
“Gemma.”
“What?”
“When?”
Gemma clutched the rabbit against her chest.
“The night she went away.”
Chadworth could hear nothing except a faint ringing in his ears.
“Your mother was here that night?”
Gemma nodded.
“She was crying with Rosie.”
Rosie.
Rosamund.
Chadworth stood so quickly he almost lost balance.
“Stay together. Lock this door. Open it only for me.”
He left before either could answer.
Marcus was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“Sir, the system is partially restored.”
“Good.”
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The outage wasn’t random.”
Chadworth stopped.
Marcus continued.
“Someone accessed the old electrical panel beneath the west wing.”
“The hidden room.”
“Possibly.”
Chadworth stared toward the service corridor.
“Then we’re going down.”
Marcus stepped in front of him.
“I strongly recommend waiting for the team.”
“No.”
“We don’t know what’s there.”
“My employee and fiancée are down there.”
“That is exactly why—”
Chadworth pushed past him.
The disguised door remained open.
Lights illuminated the stairway.
He descended.
The temperature dropped with every step.
At the bottom was a narrow corridor with exposed brick walls.
This was not part of the modern renovation.
It was old.
Much older than the mansion’s current interior.
At the end stood a steel door.
It was open.
Inside, Sabina sat against a cabinet, her face white.
Rosamund stood several feet away.
Between them was an open metal trunk.
Hundreds of photographs were scattered across the floor.
Chadworth stepped inside.
Sabina looked up.
Her eyes widened.
“You.”
Rosamund closed her eyes.
Not in surprise.
In relief.
Chadworth looked at the photographs.
They were of his family.
Evelyn pushing Lorelai in a stroller.
Gemma as a baby.
Chadworth leaving the office.
The girls at school.
Rosamund entering the mansion.
Sabina standing outside a restaurant.
Some photographs were recent.
Others were almost ten years old.
“What is this?” Chadworth asked.
Sabina pointed at Rosamund.
“Ask her.”
Rosamund looked at him.
“It isn’t what you think.”
“That sentence rarely helps.”
She swallowed.
“I can explain.”
“Start.”
Rosamund looked toward Marcus.
“No.”
Chadworth followed her gaze.
Marcus stood in the doorway.
His expression unreadable.
“What?” Chadworth asked.
Rosamund did not take her eyes off him.
“Not while he’s here.”
Marcus almost laughed.
“Excuse me?”
Rosamund stepped backward.
“Mr. Prescott, you need to send him away.”
Marcus shook his head.
“She’s clearly involved in something.”
Rosamund’s voice sharpened.
“He knows this room exists.”
Silence.
Chadworth slowly turned.
Marcus stared back at her.
“That’s absurd.”
“You disabled the original camera in this corridor four years ago.”
“I wasn’t even head of security four years ago.”
“No.”
Rosamund looked at Chadworth.
“He was your wife’s private protection officer.”
Chadworth knew that.
Marcus had been promoted after Evelyn died.
Rosamund continued.
“And he was the last member of your security staff to see her alive.”
Marcus’s face changed.
Barely.
But Chadworth saw it.
Rosamund pointed to the metal trunk.
“That belongs to Mrs. Prescott.”
Chadworth’s heart stopped.
“She knew someone was following her. She started collecting evidence.”
Sabina laughed nervously.
“You expect him to believe you?”
Rosamund ignored her.
“Three days before she died, Mrs. Prescott told me that if anything happened to her, I was to keep this room hidden until I could prove who was involved.”
Chadworth looked at the photographs again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she told me not to.”
“My wife died.”
“And she believed someone close to you helped make that happen.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“That’s enough.”
Rosamund immediately moved away from him.
Chadworth raised one hand.
Marcus stopped.
“What exactly did Evelyn suspect?”
Rosamund looked down at the open trunk.
“She discovered money disappearing from a foundation account.”
Chadworth frowned.
“Which foundation?”
“The Prescott Children’s Trust.”
He knew it well.
It held hundreds of millions in assets designated primarily for Lorelai and Gemma.
“Who was taking it?”
“She never found the whole network.”
“Who did she suspect?”
Rosamund looked directly at Marcus.
Then at Sabina.
And said two names.
“Marcus Vale.”
Sabina’s breathing changed.
“And Sabrina Devereaux.”
Chadworth frowned.
“Who?”
Rosamund looked at Sabina.
“Ask your fiancée what her real name is.”
Sabina stood suddenly.
“That woman is insane.”
Rosamund reached into the trunk.
She pulled out an old newspaper clipping sealed inside plastic.
The photograph showed a younger woman outside a courthouse.
Dark hair.
Different makeup.
Different clothes.
But unmistakable eyes.
Sabina’s eyes.
Beneath the photograph was the name:
SABRINA DEVEREAUX.
Chadworth looked up.
Sabina had begun moving toward the door.
Marcus stood in her path.
For one second, Chadworth expected him to stop her.
May you like
Instead, Marcus stepped aside.
And that was when Chadworth finally understood that the danger inside his house was far greater than one cruel woman.
