Chapter 6 - The Western Greenhouse
The rain was icy, stinging Henry’s face as he crossed the manicured lawn. The storm had knocked out the landscape floodlights, plunging the garden into pitch-black shadows broken only by occasional flashes of distant lightning.
The conservatory was a relic from the Victorian era—a massive, skeletal structure of cast iron and cracked glass panels, overgrown with ivy and dead climbing roses. Henry hadn't set foot inside it since he was a boy.
The iron door creaked open, groaning against decades of rust.
Inside, the smell was suffocating: wet earth, decaying moss, and the coppery tang of stagnant water. Rain poured through broken panes in the roof, splashing noisily onto the stone floor.
Henry raised the flashlight in his left hand, the shotgun cradled in his right arm. The beam sliced through the darkness, illuminating shattered clay pots, rusted shears, and dead, sprawling ferns that looked like skeletal fingers reaching from the soil.
Then he saw the fresh tracks.
Mud had been smeared across the pale flagstones. Boot prints—size eleven, deep-treaded—led straight toward the center of the structure, where a massive stone fountain shaped like a kneeling nymph stood dry and choked with weeds.
"Show yourself!" Henry barked, his voice echoing under the glass canopy.
Only the drumming rain answered.
He followed the muddy tracks to the rear of the fountain. There, the heavy slate pavers had recently been disturbed. Someone had used an iron pry bar to lift three large slabs, revealing a square opening in the foundation that smelled foul—of ancient mud, lime, and rot.
Henry knelt down, keeping his weapon trained on the darkness ahead. He shone the light into the hole.
A rusted iron hatch lay embedded in the foundation, secured by a heavy, square-headed padlock. The metal around the lock was scratched, fresh scratches cutting through decades of orange rust. Someone had tried to force it with a crowbar and failed.
Henry reached into his pocket and pulled out the tarnished brass key from the wall safe.
His fingers were numb from the rain. He pushed the key into the padlock. It resisted for a moment, then slid home with an oily click.
He turned it. The rusted mechanism resisted, then gave way with a sharp *clack*.
Before Henry could lift the hatch, a heavy blow struck his right shoulder from behind.
The shotgun flew from his grip, clattering across the wet stones. Henry was driven to his knees, pain flaring down his arm. He rolled immediately, throwing his weight against his attacker's legs.
A man tumbled down into the mud beside him, swearing violently.
In the flash of lightning, Henry recognized the face under the dripping hood. It wasn't James.
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It was Thomas Miller—the son of the old county sheriff who had ruled Julian's death an accident forty years ago.
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