Chapter 6 — The Hidden Elevator
The blood trail ended at the blank wall beside the old portrait gallery.
Juliano pressed his hand against the paneling.
Nothing.
Clara moved toward a carved wooden column.
“The woman showed me once.”
She pressed the eye of a carved lion.
A section of wall slid open.
Behind it stood a narrow iron elevator.
Juliano stared.
“I grew up in this house.”
“Maybe you didn’t know everything about it.”
He looked at her.
“You seem to know plenty.”
Clara did not defend herself.
They stepped inside.
The elevator had only two buttons.
B.
S.
Clara pressed B.
The cage descended with a grinding groan.
“How many times have you been down here?” Juliano asked.
“Twice.”
“And you never thought to mention a hidden basement beneath my house?”
“I was scared.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
Clara’s face tightened.
“I know.”
The honesty surprised him.
The elevator stopped.
The doors opened onto a concrete tunnel.
Emergency lights flickered overhead.
At the far end stood a steel door.
It was partly open.
The blood trail continued inside.
Juliano entered first.
The room beyond looked like a private medical station.
A narrow bed.
Oxygen tanks.
IV bags.
Boxes of medication.
On a rolling tray lay an empty syringe.
Clara rushed toward the bed.
The sheets were warm.
“She was here.”
Juliano studied the labels.
The drugs were for heart failure and cognitive impairment.
Some were legitimate.
Others had no pharmacy markings.
He picked up a glass vial.
A handwritten label read: E.F. — Evening Dose.
Clara touched his arm.
“Listen.”
A faint sound came from behind a cabinet.
Breathing.
They moved it aside.
An older woman lay curled in a hidden recess, barely conscious.
Her silver hair was matted with sweat.
Her face looked thinner, older, almost unrecognizable.
But Juliano knew her.
He had memorized that face as a child.
He had buried it as a man.
His knees nearly failed him.
“Mother?”
The woman’s eyelids fluttered.
She opened them.
For one second, confusion clouded her face.
Then she saw him.
“Juli?”
No one had called him that since he was nineteen.
Juliano dropped beside her.
His hand hovered above her cheek before finally touching it.
She was warm.
Alive.
Impossible.
Clara began to cry silently.
Elena gripped Juliano’s wrist.
“Don’t marry her.”
His voice barely worked.
“Vanessa?”
Elena’s breathing turned ragged.
“She found the ledgers.”
“What ledgers?”
“Your father kept names.”
Juliano leaned closer.
“What names?”
Elena looked toward the doorway.
Fear sharpened her eyes.
“She’s not alone.”
The lights went out.
May you like
A gunshot cracked through the room.
And Clara fell against Juliano.
