Chapter 2 - Someone Inside the House
Damian was moving before the second alarm sounded.
He crossed the security room, grabbed the pistol locked beneath the console, and spoke into his radio.
“Seal the east wing. Nobody leaves.”
His chief of security, Grant Keller, answered immediately. “We lost cameras on two floors.”
“Internal failure?”
“No. Somebody killed the feed.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
The estate sat behind twelve-foot walls and thermal fencing. Only seven people had overnight access. Four were guards. Two were medical staff.
The seventh was Tessa.
He hated that his mind went there first.
By the time Damian reached Room 104, emergency lights had come on. Tessa stood beside Beatrice’s bed holding a metal IV pole like a weapon.
“You,” she said when Damian entered. “Are you the reason someone is trying to scare her?”
“That depends on who you think I am.”
“The man watching us without permission.”
Damian glanced toward the dead camera. “You signed the security disclosure.”
“I signed a medical employment contract. I didn’t sign up to be part of whatever this is.”
Beatrice reached for Tessa’s wrist.
“Don’t fight him,” she murmured.
Tessa looked down. “Why not?”
“Because he’s the only one who can open it.”
Damian stepped closer. “Open what?”
Beatrice stared at him for a long time.
For one second he saw the woman from his childhood - flour on her apron, dirt under her fingernails, laughing as she chased him away from the roses.
Then fear returned to her face.
“The room under the chapel.”
Damian’s stomach dropped.
There was no chapel on the estate.
At least, not anymore.
His father had ordered the old family chapel demolished when Damian was thirteen, days after his mother’s funeral.
Grant appeared at the door. “Sir, we found the outage point.”
“Where?”
“The maintenance corridor behind this room.”
“Who accessed it?”
Grant hesitated.
That hesitation told Damian more than the answer.
“Say it.”
Grant held up a tablet. “Your credentials.”
Tessa stared at Damian.
Damian took the tablet and checked the log himself.
The access token was real.
Not copied. Not guessed.
It was his master credential, authenticated through a biometric key stored in a safe only he could open.
Then Grant added quietly, “There’s more.”
May you like
On the maintenance floor beneath Room 104, they had found a wet footprint.
Next to it was a fresh white rose petal.
