Chapter 8 - Under the Floorboards
Police sirens swallowed the next thirty seconds.
Patricia ran.
Julian dragged Ethan toward a rear stairwell.
Lily tried to stand and nearly collapsed.
I caught her.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’m fine.”
“That sentence is hereditary in this family.”
She almost laughed.
Then a gunshot cracked somewhere behind the warehouse.
Everyone froze.
Detective Ruiz’s voice boomed from outside.
“Police! Show your hands!”
I pulled Lily behind a concrete column.
Another shot.
Then silence.
Officers flooded the building.
They found Ethan ten minutes later locked in an office, wrists bound. Patricia and Julian were gone.
No weapon was recovered.
No one could say who fired.
By noon, I was sitting in an interview room beside Lily Mercer, trying to decide whether she was victim, conspirator, family, or all three.
Detective Ruiz placed two coffees on the table.
“Start over,” she said to Lily.
Lily’s temple had been bandaged.
She wrapped both hands around the paper cup.
“Patricia asked me to come to the house last night.”
“Why?”
“She said Ethan had found something in Claire’s trust records.”
“What?”
“A reference to a restricted property file.”
I leaned forward.
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“What’s under it?”
Lily looked at me.
“I don’t know.”
“Julian said you did.”
“Julian lies professionally.”
“Apparently so do you.”
She accepted that.
“I’ve lied.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Detective Ruiz said, “Try the truth now.”
Lily took a breath.
“Evelyn Wren hired me nine years ago.”
I stared at her.
“I was twenty.”
“To find Rose?”
“At first, no. I didn’t know Rose was my biological mother.”
“What did you think you were doing?”
“Researching old corporate theft tied to Patricia.”
“Why you?”
“My adoptive father was an investigator. Evelyn knew him.”
“And when did you learn who you were?”
“Seven years ago. Three months before Evelyn died.”
My anger flared.
“My mother knew you were family and never told me?”
“She wanted to.”
“That phrase is becoming meaningless.”
Lily looked down.
“She was afraid you’d contact Rose.”
“Was Rose alive?”
Lily met my eyes.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
“I found evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Payments. Medical records under aliases. Rental agreements.”
“Where?”
“Several states.”
“Most recent?”
“Two years ago.”
Richard had claimed he did not know whether Rose was alive.
Maybe he genuinely didn’t.
Or maybe everyone in this story had learned to lie with the same expression.
Detective Ruiz asked, “What did Patricia want?”
“An access code.”
“To what?”
“Evelyn’s archive.”
“She already tried the power of attorney.”
“Not that archive.”
Lily looked at me.
“There’s another one.”
“Where?”
“In your house.”
My skin prickled.
“I’ve lived there for years.”
“So did Patricia.”
“Where is it?”
“Evelyn’s notes call it ‘the second cellar.’”
“There is no second cellar.”
“Not on the plans.”
Detective Ruiz sat back.
“And Patricia believes something valuable is hidden there?”
“Not valuable,” Lily said. “Dangerous.”
“What?”
“Evidence.”
“Of what?”
Lily hesitated.
“Rose’s disappearance.”
The police searched the warehouse for hours.
Patricia and Julian escaped through an old loading tunnel leading to the riverfront.
Ethan was taken to the station separately.
He asked to see me.
I refused.
Then he sent one sentence through Detective Ruiz.
Tell Claire I know where the second cellar is.
I changed my mind.
Ethan sat across from me in another interview room, a bruise darkening his jaw.
He looked exhausted.
“You know where it is?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“My father showed me when I was fourteen.”
Richard, waiting outside, had told me he remembered no second cellar.
Of course.
“What’s inside?”
“I never saw.”
“Why?”
“It was locked.”
“Where?”
“Behind the wine room.”
“There’s a concrete wall behind the wine room.”
“It’s false.”
My heartbeat sped up.
“Why didn’t you tell your mother?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
I stared at him.
“Why last year?”
“She asked whether Dad had ever shown me hidden spaces in the house.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care what you believe anymore.”
The old arrogance tried to surface, but fear crushed it.
“Then why help me?”
“Because Mom left me tied to a railing while Cross pointed a gun at me.”
That was a convincing reason.
“Did you know Richard was alive?”
“Yes.”
“For two and a half years?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“Why did you let me mourn him?”
His eyes dropped.
“Because Dad made me swear.”
“And you always obey your father?”
“No.”
“Then try again.”
He rubbed his wrists.
“My mother told me if you knew he was alive, you would tell Evelyn’s old people. She said they were the ones who tried to kill him.”
“My mother was already dead.”
“Her people weren’t.”
“Maya? Nora?”
“I didn’t know who.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He finally looked at me.
“Because lying got easier.”
That was perhaps the first honest thing he had said.
I stood.
“Show the police the cellar.”
“I’ll show you.”
“No.”
“Claire, there’s something else.”
“What?”
“When my father showed me the wall, he said something.”
I waited.
“He said, ‘If your mother ever asks what’s behind here, tell her nothing.’”
“Why?”
“I asked him.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘Because the truth will destroy both families.’”
At five that afternoon, police accompanied us back to the house.
Patricia’s notice of termination still sat untouched on the dining table.
My medicine bottle remained on the floor.
One pill had been crushed beneath a shoe.
The scene made my stomach tighten, but I walked past it.
Ethan led Detective Ruiz, Maya, Richard, Lily, and me into the basement wine room.
He moved a freestanding rack.
Behind it was plaster.
He tapped three places.
Hollow.
Police technicians cut through.
Behind the wall was a steel door.
No handle.
Only a keypad.
Lily stepped forward.
“Evelyn’s code.”
“Do you know it?” I asked.
“No.”
Richard whispered, “I might.”
He entered six numbers.
The keypad flashed red.
Wrong.
Ethan tried a date.
Wrong.
I stared at the scratched metal.
My mother loved puzzles but hated sentiment.
Then I remembered her favorite legal phrase.
Possession is not ownership.
The house parcel number ended in 0417.
I entered 0417 plus my birth month.
The light turned green.
The steel door released with a deep click.
Detective Ruiz opened it.
Cold stale air rolled out.
Beyond was a narrow staircase descending farther underground.
At the bottom sat a room lined with filing cabinets.
A desk.
A tape recorder.
And, in the center, an old wooden chair.
Leather straps were attached to the arms.
Lily whispered, “What the hell?”
Richard gripped his cane so hard his knuckles whitened.
On the wall behind the chair someone had written a message in faded red paint.
EVELYN WREN IS A LIAR.
Beneath it was a date.
The night Rose disappeared.
Then Maya pointed toward the desk.
There was a fresh envelope lying on top.
My name was written across it.
Not in my mother’s handwriting.
In Patricia’s.
I opened it.
Inside was a key and one sentence.
If you want Rose, come to Cedar Point before midnight. Come without police.
I looked at the clock on the wall.
5:42 p.m.
Lily whispered, “She has my mother.”
Richard shook his head.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
He stared at the chair.
“Because Rose was never the prisoner in this room.”
I turned.
“Who was?”
May you like
Richard looked at me.
“Your mother.”
