Chapter 3
The passage beneath my pool was older than I was.
My father knew about it.
That became obvious before he admitted anything.
When the panel opened, Robert did not look surprised by the corridor.
He looked afraid of what I might find inside.
I turned toward him.
“How long?”
He rubbed one hand over his face. “Your grandfather built it.”
“And you forgot to mention a tunnel entering my property?”
“It was sealed.”
I looked at the fresh footprints.
“Apparently not.”
Diane folded her arms. “You are turning family history into conspiracy.”
I stared at her.
“You starved Amelia because she found an object dropped inside this tunnel.”
“That child refuses to listen.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“If she had handed over the token the first day, none of this would have happened.”
The words hung there.
I looked at him.
“Say that again.”
He did not.
Good.
I entered the passage with four bodyguards. The air was cooler beneath the pool, carrying the smell of damp stone and old concrete. Twenty yards in, the tunnel widened into a maintenance chamber with two folding chairs, an ashtray, and several empty water bottles.
Recent.
Someone had been meeting here.
One chair had a shallow scratch carved into the wooden arm.
A wolf.
Mercer.
On the floor beside it lay a cigar band.
Conrad Mercer smoked that brand at every neutral dinner I had ever attended with him.
I picked it up.
Behind me, my father whispered something.
Too low.
I still heard it.
“Damn him.”
I turned.
“You expected someone else?”
Robert said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Who was supposed to be sitting in that chair?”
Marcus came into the chamber then, ignoring the bodyguard who tried to stop him.
“This is pointless.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
I held up the cigar band.
“This is the first honest thing anyone in this family has shown me today.”
Diane appeared behind him.
“You don’t understand the pressure we’ve been under.”
There.
Not denial.
Justification.
“What pressure?”
“Mercer has been moving against us for months.”
“And your solution was inviting him beneath my daughter’s swimming pool?”
She flinched.
Marcus looked at her sharply.
Interesting.
Maybe he had not known the meetings happened here.
The conspiracy was already beginning to split into different versions.
I searched the chamber.
Behind one chair was a shallow niche containing an empty velvet pouch.
The outline inside was the exact size of the silver wolf token.
Amelia had not merely found something a visitor dropped.
May you like
Someone had deliberately hidden it.
And whatever belonged beside it was gone.
