Chapter 4 - THE TUNNEL
Richard ran.
Detective Brooks followed.
The sound had come from the basement level.
Sterling House had been built in 1928 and renovated twice.
Richard knew about the wine cellar.
The generator room.
The old servants’ kitchen.
He did not know about the narrow door behind the storage shelves.
Brooks found it.
Fresh scratches marked the floor.
“Someone moved this recently.”
Richard helped pull the shelving unit aside.
Behind it was a steel door.
Unlocked.
Cold air came through the gap.
Brooks drew her weapon.
“Stay behind me.”
They entered a narrow stone corridor.
Richard stared.
“What the hell is this?”
“Old service tunnel, maybe.”
The passage ran beneath the east wing.
Halfway down, they found a folding table.
A laptop sat on it.
Three phones.
A stack of photographs.
Richard picked one up.
Sophie leaving school.
Another.
Sophie sleeping.
Another.
Richard entering an airport.
His stomach twisted.
Someone had been tracking them.
Brooks opened the laptop.
Password protected.
Then Richard noticed a framed photograph beside it.
Caroline.
Alive.
The date printed in the corner was six months after her funeral.
Richard stumbled backward.
“No.”
Brooks picked it up.
“You’re certain this is her?”
“That’s my wife.”
Caroline stood outside a roadside café.
She was thinner than he remembered.
Hair shorter.
But unmistakably Caroline.
On the back were four handwritten words.
HE STILL BELIEVES IT.
Richard’s knees nearly failed.
Caroline Sterling had supposedly died after her car plunged from a coastal road during a storm.
The vehicle burned.
Identification had been made using jewelry, dental records, and personal items.
Richard had buried a closed casket.
He had never seen her body.
“Richard.”
Brooks’s voice changed.
She pointed down the tunnel.
Fresh footprints marked the dust.
They led to another door.
Richard opened it.
Night air rushed inside.
The tunnel exited near the wooded edge of his property.
Tire tracks cut across wet earth.
Someone had just escaped.
Brooks radioed officers.
Richard stood staring into the darkness.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Silence.
“Hello?”
A woman breathed on the other end.
Then came a voice he had not heard in three years.
“Richard?”
His entire body went rigid.
“Caroline?”
A sob.
Then a whisper.
May you like
“Don’t trust Vanessa.”
The line went dead.
