THE MAID’S DEADLY SECRET

The halon gas was invisible, but I could hear the faint, steady hiss echoing in the steel room.

Three minutes. Maybe less.

Ethan was staring in horror at the vents. "He killed her. He actually killed Vanessa."

"Focus, Ethan!" I grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to look at me. "Fear gets you killed. Anger keeps you moving. Stay with me."

I let go of him and lunged for the small box marked David Whitmore.

I ripped the lid off.

Inside lay a vintage gold pocket watch, heavily tarnished, and a stack of old letters.

"What are you doing?" Ethan coughed. The air was already starting to feel thin.

"Your brother knew your father would come after him," I said, examining the watch. "He didn't just steal the ledger. He built a contingency."

I pried the back off the pocket watch with my fingernail.

Inside, nested perfectly against the ticking gears, was a small, folded piece of thick paper.

I opened it.

It was a schematic.

Not of a weapon. Not of a defense system.

It was a blueprint of Whitmore House.

"Look," I pointed to the layout of the vault room we were standing in. "Your family built this house in the 1920s. Prohibition era."

Ethan leaned in, squinting in the red emergency light. "There's a secondary line behind the vault wall."

"A bootlegger's tunnel," I confirmed. "David found it. That's why he hid this here."

I moved to the back wall of the vault. It looked like solid steel plating.

I ran my hands along the rivets.

"It has to be manual," I muttered, my lungs starting to burn. "Halon displaces oxygen. We have to hurry."

"Clara," Ethan wheezed, slumping against a row of safe deposit boxes. "I can't... breathe."

"Stay on the ground! The gas fills from the top down!"

I pressed my ear against the cold steel, tapping the rivets with the heavy gold pocket watch.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Thud.

One rivet sounded hollow.

I pressed it. It didn't budge.

I twisted it.

With a heavy, grinding groan, a section of the steel plating shifted outward by half an inch.

I jammed my fingers into the gap and pulled with everything I had.

My muscles screamed. My vision blurred around the edges.

The heavy panel slid sideways, revealing a narrow, dark, dirt-lined tunnel.

"Ethan!" I grabbed his collar and dragged him toward the opening.

He was semi-conscious, his lips turning blue.

I shoved him into the dark tunnel and squeezed in after him, grabbing the steel panel and pulling it shut just as the vault filled completely with gas.

We lay in the damp dirt, gasping for air.

The musty smell of the tunnel was the best thing I had ever breathed.

Ethan coughed violently, rolling onto his side. "You saved me."

"Don't thank me yet," I said, wiping dirt from my face. "They're going to open that vault in ten minutes to retrieve our bodies. When they find we're gone, they'll lock down the estate."

"Where does this tunnel go?"

"According to David's map," I said, looking at the faded paper, "it leads to the old greenhouse on the edge of the property."

We crawled in silence for what felt like miles.

My mind raced.

Margaret and Silas were a lethal combination. Arthur had the money and the local police in his pocket. If we just ran, we would be hunted forever.

We couldn't run.

We had to break them.

Finally, the tunnel ended at a wooden trapdoor.

I pushed it open.

We emerged into the overgrown, glass-enclosed greenhouse. The moonlight filtered through the dirty panes, casting long, fractured shadows.

"We need a phone," Ethan whispered. "We have to call the FBI."

"The local field office is compromised. That's how Silas found me. Arthur bought someone."