Chapter 3 - THE FIRE ESCAPE
Thick, acrid smoke began to fill the study, pooling near the ceiling before sinking rapidly toward the floor.
"Help!" Nathan roared, throwing his shoulder against the heavy oak doors. They didn't budge. "Richard, open the damn door!"
There was no answer. Only the crackle of flames eating through the velvet runner in the hallway.
"He's gone," I coughed, pulling the collar of my uniform over my nose. "Nathan, the windows!"
I ran toward the heavy velvet drapes covering the floor-to-ceiling windows. I yanked them back, revealing thick, reinforced glass. We were on the second floor, looking out over the sprawling, manicured gardens in the back of the estate.
Nathan grabbed the heavy bronze paperweight he had used to break the desk drawer. He swung it with all his might against the glass.
The bronze bounced off with a dull thud.
"Impact-resistant," Nathan choked out, his eyes watering from the smoke. "My father installed them after the kidnapping threats in the nineties. They won't break."
Panic, cold and sharp, seized my chest. I had spent two years infiltrating this house to find the truth, and now I was going to die in a locked room with it.
Answer one, open two. We knew Evelyn had hunted my mother, but why was Richard—Nathan’s uncle—willing to burn his own nephew alive just to keep the secret?
I dropped to my hands and knees, where the air was marginally clearer, and scrambled toward the massive mahogany desk.
"Look for a release switch!" Nathan yelled, joining me on the floor, coughing violently. "My father was paranoid. He wouldn't build a room he couldn't escape from!"
I ran my hands frantically under the rim of the heavy wooden desk. Dust and cobwebs clung to my fingers. Nothing.
I looked at the walls. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three sides of the room.
"The books," I gasped. "Nathan, pull the books!"
We threw ourselves at the shelves, blindly ripping leather-bound volumes onto the floor. The smoke was getting thicker, stinging my eyes until I was completely blind. My lungs burned.
Suddenly, my hand caught on something hard behind a row of encyclopedias. It wasn't a book. It was a small, iron lever bolted to the back of the shelf.
I yanked it down.
With a heavy, grinding groan, the entire bookshelf to my left swung outward on hidden hinges.
"Nathan!" I screamed, grabbing his arm and dragging him toward the opening.
We threw ourselves into the narrow, dark passageway just as the main doors of the study gave way, allowing a massive fireball to roll into the room, consuming the desk and the photograph of my mother.
Nathan slammed the bookshelf shut behind us, cutting off the fire.
We were plunged into pitch-black darkness.
We lay on the cold stone floor, gasping for breath, coughing up black soot. My chest heaved, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
"Are you... are you okay?" Nathan rasped in the dark.
"Yes," I wheezed. "What is this place?"
"Servants' passage," Nathan replied, pushing himself up. "My grandfather built them to move staff around without disturbing the guests. They haven't been used in fifty years. I didn't even know they connected to the study."
He pulled a gold lighter from his pocket and flicked it on. The small flame illuminated a narrow, brick-lined corridor covered in decades of dust and cobwebs.
"We need to get out," I said, my voice shaking. "If Richard realizes we didn't burn, he'll be waiting outside."
Nathan nodded. We moved quickly down the cramped tunnel.
"Why would your uncle do this?" I asked, keeping my voice low. "Why protect Evelyn’s secret?"
"Richard doesn't care about my mother," Nathan said bitterly, leading the way. "He cares about the company. Whitmore Industries. When my father died, the board wanted to appoint me as CEO. But I was only twenty-two. Richard convinced them I was too inexperienced. He took over 'temporarily.' He’s been running it ever since."
"But if you’re the legitimate heir—"
"I’m the only legitimate heir," Nathan interrupted, stopping and turning to face me in the flickering light. "Or at least, I was. Until you showed up."
I froze.
"What do you mean?"
"My father’s will was ironclad," Nathan explained, his eyes dark. "He left fifty-one percent of the company voting shares to his children, divided equally. Since I was the only child, I got all of them. But I legally couldn't take control until my thirty-fifth birthday."
"When is your thirty-fifth birthday?" I asked.
"Next week," Nathan said grimly.
The pieces slammed together with terrifying clarity.
"If I am alive," I whispered, "and I am his daughter... I own half those shares."
"Exactly," Nathan said. "If you exist, the trust is broken. The transfer of power is delayed until probate can verify your identity. Richard gets to stay in power. Or, worse..."
"Or worse, Richard already knew about me," I realized, a cold dread washing over me. "What if Richard was the one who sent Evelyn those bank transfers? What if Richard wanted my mother to run, knowing Evelyn would follow her?"
Before Nathan could answer, we heard a sound that made my blood run cold.
Footsteps.
Heavy, deliberate boots echoing from the far end of the tunnel.
Someone was coming toward us.
Nathan instantly killed the lighter, plunging us back into absolute darkness.
"Run," he hissed, grabbing my hand.
We sprinted blindly through the black corridor, our hands trailing along the rough brick walls to keep from tripping. The footsteps behind us sped up, echoing loudly in the enclosed space.
Suddenly, my hand hit solid wood. A door.
I grabbed the handle and twisted. It was locked.
"Move," Nathan grunted. He threw his shoulder against the old wood. The door splintered, but held.
A beam of a high-powered flashlight cut through the darkness behind us.
"Stop right there, Nathan," a cold voice echoed down the tunnel.
I looked back. Standing thirty feet away was a man in a tailored black suit, holding a suppressed pistol. It wasn't Richard. It was Marcus, the head of the Whitmore security detail.
"Marcus, put the gun down," Nathan ordered, stepping in front of me, shielding my body with his own. "You work for me."
"I work for whoever signs the checks, sir," Marcus said calmly, raising the weapon. "And right now, Richard is signing them."
I didn't think. I reached into the deep pocket of my black maid's apron. My fingers closed around the heavy ring of master keys I used for my daily rounds.
As Marcus adjusted his aim, I hurled the heavy key ring as hard as I could directly at the flashlight.
The metal struck the glass lens with a loud crack.
The light instantly shattered, plunging the tunnel back into darkness just as Marcus fired.
The bullet sparked against the brick wall inches from my head.
Nathan threw his entire body weight against the wooden door. This time, the rotted frame gave way. We tumbled out of the tunnel and into the freezing night air.
We were in the woods behind the estate.
"Don't stop!" Nathan yelled, pulling me up from the damp grass.
We ran into the trees, the sounds of the sirens from the fire trucks finally echoing from the front of the mansion. The sky above the estate was glowing an angry orange.
We didn't stop running until we reached the main road, completely exhausted and covered in soot.
"We need to get to the city," Nathan panted, leaning against a tree. "I have a safe house. Richard doesn't know about it."
"No," I said, catching my breath.
Nathan looked at me, confused. "Claire, they just tried to kill us. We have to hide."
"My name isn't Claire," I said, my voice hardening. "It’s Maya. And I’m done hiding. If Richard wants to kill me to keep those shares, then we are going to find the proof that I am Nolan Whitmore’s daughter."
"How?" Nathan asked. "The letter burned in the study. We have nothing but a silver pendant."
I reached under my collar and pulled the necklace free.
"Answer one, open two," I said, looking at the initials N.W.C. "Nolan Whitmore... C. The 'C' isn't for Claire."
Nathan frowned. "What is it for?"
"It’s a place," I said, a distant memory of my adoptive mother’s voice surfacing in my mind. "When I was a little girl, my adoptive mother used to tell me a story about a beautiful house by the water. She said my real mother loved it there. She called it the Cove."
May you like
Nathan’s eyes widened. "Carmel Cove. My father owned a private cabin on the coast of Maine. He left it to me in the will, but I’ve never been there. It’s been locked up for twenty years."
"Then that’s where we’re going," I said, gripping the pendant. "Because if my mother ran, she wouldn't have left without leaving proof behind."
