Chapter 6 - THE DESCENT INTO THE BASEMENT
-6-
My heart hammered against my ribs like a fist hitting a drum. I motioned for Emily to step back against the wall of the foyer, shielding Lily behind her bulky winter coat.
“Wait here,” I mouthed silently, making sure she understood.
She opened her mouth to argue, but the look in my eyes stopped her. She gave a microscopic nod, her jaw set, her fingers gripping the strap of her handbag like a weapon.
I stepped past the threshold of the grand foyer, my footsteps making no sound on the imported marble. The trail of dark crimson led straight past the formal dining room—where the wreckage of our Christmas dinner still sat untouched on the mahogany table, wine glasses half-full, cloth napkins crumpled beside cold plates of turkey—and terminated at the heavy oak door leading down to the basement.
The basement door was slightly ajar. From the darkness below came a faint, rhythmic sound: a low, metallic hum, punctuated by the steady drip-drip-drip of water hitting concrete.
I reached out, my fingers wrapping around the brass doorknob, and pushed it open all the way.
The darkness inside smelled of damp earth, old paper, and copper. I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out my smartphone, and flicked on the flashlight feature. A harsh, bright beam of white light cut through the gloom, illuminating a steep flight of wooden stairs descending into the bowels of the foundation.
I took a breath, gripped the wooden handrail, and began to walk down, step by agonizing step.
The stairs creaked beneath my weight. At the bottom of the flight, the basement opened up into a massive, sprawling concrete bunker divided into two sections: one side crammed with rows of steel shelving units stacked high with unlabeled cardboard boxes, and the far side dominated by a heavy, bank-vault-style steel door set directly into the natural bedrock of the mountain.
And right in front of the vault door lay a body.
“Mom!”
The word tore out of my throat before I could stop it. I dropped to my knees beside her, my phone clattering onto the concrete floor, its beam spinning wildly across the ceiling before settling on the wall.
My mother, Margaret Vance, was lying crumpled on the cold concrete floor. Her silver hair was matted with blood on one side of her temple, and her breathing was shallow, ragged, and wet. Her designer sweater was stained dark around her shoulder where a deep, ugly gash had torn through the fabric.
“Daniel…” Her eyes fluttered open, barely registering my face in the dim light. Her cold, unyielding authority was completely gone, replaced by the frail, terrified expression of a dying woman. “You… you came back.”
“Don’t talk, Mom. Stay still,” I said, my hands hovering over her wound, desperate to stem the blood flow with my bare palms. “Who did this? Was it Mark? Was it the men from the diner?”
She let out a wet, painful cough, a bubble of crimson forming at the corner of her lips. “Not… not Mark. Mark is… he’s gone, Daniel. They took him two hours after you left last night. They thought… they thought he had the cryptographic keys to the offshore accounts.”
“Who took him?” I demanded, pressing my hand harder against her shoulder. “Who is behind this?”
Before she could answer, a heavy metallic click echoed from the far corner of the bunker—the sound of a deadbolt sliding open in the shadows.
I froze.
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From behind a towering stack of cardboard storage boxes, a tall silhouette emerged into the pale beam of my dropped phone. The man was holding a heavy, suppressed automatic pistol in his right hand, the barrel pointed directly at the center of my chest.
And standing right behind him, her hands bound behind her back with plastic zip ties, her eyes wide with absolute, primal terror, was my sister-in-law, Vanessa.
