Chapter 17 - The Hidden Staircase
Claire dropped the case and ran toward the voice. A narrow stairwell opened behind a wall of potted palms. The air smelled of damp earth and old paint.
"Sophie!"
"Down here!"
Adrian caught Claire's arm. "Don't. My mother will—"
"Will what?" Claire shouted. "Hurt my sister the way she hurt Hannah?"
He released her. His face twisted, and for a moment she saw something almost like shame.
"I didn't know what happened to Hannah until afterward," he said.
"You knew enough to hide her from me."
Claire hurried down the steps. Sophie sat beside a bolted storage door, wrists tied loosely with packing cord. She was frightened but uninjured. Claire cut the cord with the small folding knife Thomas had given her years earlier for hiking.
"You came," Sophie said.
"Of course I came."
Above them, a heavy door slammed. Eleanor's voice echoed through the stairwell.
"You should have given me the case."
Claire shoved Sophie toward a narrow passage marked EXIT. It ended at a barred ventilation grate. There was no room to turn around.
"We're trapped," Sophie whispered.
Claire pulled out her phone. One bar of service. She sent Alvarez their location, then used the flashlight to inspect the grate. A rusty latch held it in place.
Footsteps approached. Claire wedged her shoe under the grate and lifted. The latch cracked, but not enough.
Sophie braced her shoulder beside Claire's.
The grate gave way just as a figure appeared in the passage.
It wasn't Eleanor.
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It was Adrian, holding the key to the outer gate.
"I can get you out," he said. "But first you have to hear what my mother did to Hannah."
