Chapter 11 - The Children in the Cellar
June made a sound I never want to hear again.
Not a scream.
A mother's breath breaking.
The photograph had been taken inside my house less than a minute earlier.
Stephen was still sitting across the boardroom table.
Or so I thought.
I looked at him.
He smiled.
Then I saw the watch.
Wrong wrist.
Wrong model.
The man in the room was not Stephen.
He pulled a fire alarm and ran.
Chaos exploded through the building.
Security tackled him in the stairwell. His identification was fake. He had been paid to sit through the meeting wearing Stephen's clothes and say as little as possible.
The real Stephen had left Chicago before dawn.
And now he had June's children.
I called the mansion security chief on a separate line. He finally answered, whispering.
"Two guards down. Nonfatal. System was overridden remotely."
"Wine cellar?"
"Locked from inside."
June grabbed my arm. "We're going."
"Police are already moving."
"So am I."
At the house, tactical officers surrounded the lower level.
Stephen called my phone.
"Bring me the blue notebook and Evelyn's letters."
"The police have copies."
"I don't care about copies. I care about what can still be authenticated."
June whispered, "Let me talk to them."
I handed her the phone.
"Lila? Baby?"
A small voice answered, "Mom?"
June closed her eyes.
"I'm here. Is Micah okay?"
"He's scared."
"Tell him to count ceiling lights. Remember our game?"
"There are six."
I looked at June.
My wine cellar had four ceiling lights.
She knew it too.
"Good girl," June said. "Keep counting."
Stephen took the phone back.
"One hour."
He hung up.
June whispered, "They're not in the cellar."
I pulled up the house plans.
Six lights.
There was one lower-level room with six recessed fixtures: the old service tunnel beneath the carriage house.
A tunnel almost nobody knew existed.
Almost.
Evelyn knew.
May you like
Victor knew.
And at the far end of that tunnel was a private road leading directly to the lake.
