Chapter 6 - ECHOES IN THE DARK
The smuggling tunnel was a terrifying relic of a bygone era. Built by bootleggers during the 1920s, it ran directly beneath the muddy banks of Blackwater Lake, connecting the mansion's cistern to a hidden trapdoor beneath the old boathouse. The walls were constructed of weeping, moss-covered brick, and the floor was submerged in two inches of freezing, murky water that soaked through our shoes with every frantic step.
The air was dense and suffocating, vibrating with the sheer acoustic force of the thunderstorm raging above us. With every crack of thunder, the tunnel shuddered, dislodging flakes of rotting mortar that rained down on our heads like gray snow.
"Sophie!" I yelled, my voice swallowed almost instantly by the oppressive darkness and the roar of the wind. "Sophie, it's Harper! We're here!"
I swept David's heavy tactical flashlight back and forth, the powerful beam cutting through the gloom. The tunnel wasn't a straight shot; it twisted and turned, designed to confuse anyone who didn't know the route. We moved as fast as we dared, Grayson staying close behind me, his hand resting reassuringly on my shoulder.
"How did she even survive down here?" Grayson murmured, his voice laced with horror as a massive spider skittered away from the light. "She’s terrified of the dark. She sleeps with a nightlight."
"She survived because she had to," I answered fiercely, my grip tightening on the flashlight. "Eleanor and David underestimated her. They thought she was just a dumb kid they could scare into silence. They didn't realize that Sophie pays attention to everything."
As we rounded a sharp bend in the brickwork, the beam of my flashlight caught a flash of bright, unnatural color clinging to the damp wall.
I rushed forward, my heart leaping into my throat. Stuck to the brick, held in place by the dampness, was a piece of paper. It was a page torn from a coloring book—a drawing of a princess in a pink dress, identical to the ones we had found in the attic crawlspace.
But this wasn't just a dropped drawing. Sophie had used a black crayon to write on the back of it, pressing so hard the wax had nearly torn the paper.
I held the flashlight steady, reading the messy, frantic handwriting.
HE IS NOT SICK. SHE GAVE HIM PILLS. THE PAPERS SAY ME AND HARPER GET THE HOUSE. I HID THEM IN THE BOAT. I HEARD DAVID COMING. I AM SCARED.
I read the words three times, my mind struggling to process the sheer magnitude of the betrayal. He is not sick. She gave him pills.
"Grandfather," Grayson breathed over my shoulder, reading the note. His voice broke. "Oh my god, Harper. Grandfather didn't die of a sudden heart attack. Eleanor murdered him."
The pieces fell into place with a horrifying, sickening clarity. Grandfather had always been robust, healthy, and sharp as a tack until his sudden, rapid decline three months ago. Eleanor had been his primary caregiver, managing his medications, isolating him from the rest of the family, insisting he was too weak for visitors. She had slowly poisoned him to take control of the estate.
But Grandfather, brilliant and paranoid until the end, must have suspected something. He had changed his will, bypassing Eleanor entirely, leaving the massive estate, the trust funds, and the lake house to the only two people he truly trusted: his granddaughters, Sophie and me. Grayson, as a legal adult, had likely been given a trust, but the bulk of the power lay with us.
Eleanor and her lawyer brother, David, had forged a new will. But Sophie, sneaking around the house, hiding in the library vents as she loved to do, had witnessed them discussing the murder. She had seen the real will in David's briefcase. And the brave, brilliant eight-year-old had stolen it.
"She has the real will," I said, my voice trembling with a mixture of absolute rage and profound pride. "She hid it in the boathouse, and she ran into the tunnels to escape David. That's why they couldn't call the police when she went missing. That's why Eleanor drugged me and called me unstable—to discredit me in case Sophie had told me anything."
"They were going to kill her, burn the house down with us inside, and walk away with millions," Grayson said, his fists clenching at his sides. The grief over our grandfather's murder ignited a dangerous, cold fire in his eyes. "We are going to destroy them, Harper. We are going to ruin their lives."
"First, we save Sophie," I said, moving faster, the freezing water splashing against my shins.
The tunnel began to incline slightly upward, the brick giving way to heavy, rotting wooden planks. We were directly beneath the boathouse. The roar of the lake was deafening here, the waves crashing violently against the wooden pilings outside.
At the end of the tunnel, a wooden ladder led up to a square trapdoor set into the ceiling. The door was slightly ajar, a faint, flickering light spilling down into the tunnel.
I clicked off the flashlight, plunging us into darkness. I gestured for Grayson to be silent. We crept to the base of the ladder, holding our breath.
From above, pouring through the gap in the trapdoor, I heard a sound that made my blood run instantly cold. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't the waves.
It was Eleanor's voice.
"Come out from under there, you little pest," Eleanor hissed, her voice vibrating with a psychotic, unraveling fury. "David is dead, the house is burning, and nobody is coming for you. Give me the documents, Sophie, and I promise I'll make it quick. If you make me come down there, I'll hold your head under the water until you stop fighting."
My sister was up there. Trapped with a murderer.
May you like
I looked at Grayson. There was no plan. There was no strategy. There was only the primal, desperate need to protect our blood.
Grayson nodded, his eyes locked on mine. We surged up the ladder together.
