Chapter 3 - Shadows of the PastThe local hospital in Connecticut was sterile, bright, and filled with the steady, rhythmic beep of heart monitors.
It had been twelve hours since Daniel pulled the young woman—identified tentatively by police as Clara Vance, who had mysteriously vanished from a nearby town nearly five years ago—out of the hidden basement beneath his hallway.
Clara was currently resting in a private VIP room under heavy medical observation, heavily sedated, receiving IV fluids to treat severe malnutrition and dehydration.
In the hospital waiting room, Daniel sat in a stiff plastic chair, staring blankly at a cup of cold black coffee. The local police detectives had already questioned him twice, taking his statements, examining the blueprint discrepancies of the mansion, and launching a full-scale criminal investigation into how a human being had been sealed alive beneath a billionaire’s floorboards.
Lily was asleep on a small sofa in the corner of the room, her head resting on a folded hospital blanket, clutching her stuffed rabbit.
The door to the waiting room clicked open, and Detective Miller walked in, looking grim. He dropped a thick manila folder onto the small table in front of Daniel.
“We ran checks on the architectural history of your estate, Mr. Harrington,” Detective Miller said quietly, pulling up a chair. “That hidden chamber wasn't built by accident. It was custom-engineered during the Prohibition era as a bootlegger’s vault, but fifty years ago, the house was owned by your estate’s original developer—Victor Vance.”
Daniel’s head snapped up. “Victor Vance? Clara’s grandfather?”
“Exactly,” Miller nodded grimly. “According to our initial archival search, that chamber was converted decades ago into an airtight panic room—or rather, a punishment cell. But Clara Vance didn't vanish five years ago because she ran away. Someone locked her down there. Someone with full access to the house’s master security override.”
May you like
Daniel’s blood ran cold. The mansion had been empty for years before he purchased it from an estate liquidation firm. But the realization hit him like a physical blow: whoever had sealed Clara beneath the marble had known the house inside and out.
And they might still be watching.
Related Stories
