Chapter 5 - THE CELLAR BENEATH THE CRAG
"Julian!" Sofía threw her weight against the solid wood. The door didn't even vibrate. "Open this door! Let us out!"
A quiet, dry chuckle came from the other side. "Do you have any idea how much work it took to clean up the mess Elena left? The bribes to the harbor patrol? The private divers I had to pay off to confirm they found 'biological traces' on the rocks? All to keep the company stock from plummeting into oblivion."
"You imprisoned your own sister!" Maya screamed, running to the door and pounding her fists against the painted wood. "You kept her chained to the floor like an animal!"
There was a brief pause on the other side. Sofía could hear Julian taking a slow breath through his nose.
"Ah," Julian said softly. "The resemblance really is uncanny. When I saw you through the window, walking up the driveway in the rain, for five seconds I thought the sea had finally spit her back out. But you're softer than Elena. Elena had fire. You just have her eyes."
"Let Maya go, Julian," Sofía pleaded, trying to steady her breathing. "She doesn't care about the company. Take the shares! We'll sign whatever you want. We'll leave the country tonight."
"My dear niece," Julian sighed, "you’ve always been hopelessly naive. You think this is about money? This is about legacy. Vance Maritime has a multi-billion-dollar merger finalizing with the European consortium on Friday. Do you think they will sign a deal if a bastard claimant emerges with a valid birth certificate and twenty-year-old criminal allegations against the CEO?"
The sound of liquid sloshing against plastic drifted beneath the gap in the door.
A sharp, pungent chemical stench immediately cut through the room.
*Kerosene.*
Sofía’s heart nearly stopped. "Julian... no. Don't do this!"
"Clara Moreau was supposed to take you to South America and never speak English again," Julian said, his voice muffled as he poured the accelerant along the baseboards outside. "I gave her two hundred thousand dollars to vanish with you. But old women get sentimental when they face cancer. They grow consciences. A fatal flaw."
"Julian, stop!" Sofía banged against the door. "Victoria is in the house! The staff—"
"Victoria is heavily sedated in the master bedroom, as usual," Julian replied coldly. "And the staff was dismissed for the weekend due to the storm. As far as the authorities are concerned, an old electrical short in the abandoned west wing caused a tragic, fast-moving blaze. Sofía Vance was trapped while inspecting historical records. And the unidentified drifter who broke in died beside her."
A metallic *flick* sounded outside. The unmistakable snap of a lighter.
"No!" Maya cried.
"Goodbye, little niece," Julian said. "You should have stayed in the woods."
*WHOOSH.*
A wall of heat slammed against the lower panel as orange light erupted through the crack beneath the door. Smoke, black and toxic, began pouring into the room like curling serpents.
"The tunnel!" Maya coughed, grabbing Sofía’s arm. "The journal! My mother wrote about a root cellar tunnel!"
Sofía spun around, her eyes watering from the sudden plume of smoke. "Where? She said Clara took you through the root cellar, but this is the second floor!"
"Look for a laundry chute or a service dumbwaiter!" Maya shouted, dropping low to avoid the rising smoke.
Sofía swept her penlight across the room. In the corner behind the antique crib, partly obscured by a tattered standing screen, was a small wooden door about four feet high.
Sofía lunged toward it. The latch was painted shut, but Sofía jammed her metal scissors into the seam and wrenched with all her strength. With a loud crack of splintering pine, the hatch tore open.
Inside was an old freight dumbwaiter, large enough for heavy laundry hampers or trunks, hanging from thick, greased steel cables.
"Get in!" Sofía yelled, coughing as the smoke thickened, turning the ceiling into an impenetrable black cloud.
"Not without the documents!" Maya dashed back to the open safe, scooping the manila envelope, the cassette tapes, and her mother’s journal into her arms before tumbling toward the hatch.
The flames were eating through the cobalt door now, the thick lead paint blistering and popping into toxic fumes. The heat at Sofía’s back felt like a roaring furnace.
Maya squeezed into the narrow wooden box. Sofía squeezed in beside her, their knees pressed against their chests, the confined space suffocating.
"The release brake!" Sofía gasped, spotting a rusted iron lever mounted to the guide rail inside the shaft.
She slammed the lever downward.
May you like
The cable shrieked. The counterweight slammed upward with a deafening metallic roar, and the wooden box plummeted into the vertical darkness of Highwood Manor.
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