Chapter 4 - Grace's Code
Gunfire exploded in the dark.
I dropped, grabbed Elias by the collar, and dragged him behind the hospital bed.
A bullet slammed into the wall where his head had been.
Someone screamed in the corridor.
Then emergency lights flickered on, bathing the cell in red.
My mother was gone.
One guard lay bleeding near the doorway. The other had vanished with her.
I looked at Elias.
"Why did Grace write your name?"
He was breathing hard. "Because I was the only one she trusted."
"Or because you were the one who put her here."
His eyes met mine.
"Both."
I pressed the barrel of my pistol under his chin.
"Start talking."
He swallowed.
"I carried the first tray. I helped Dr. Halpern bring her downstairs. I believed your mother when she said Grace was having delusions and might hurt the baby."
"You helped chain my pregnant wife to that bed."
"Yes."
His voice broke on the word.
"Three days later, Grace asked me one question. She asked why a delusional woman needed armed guards outside her door. I didn't have an answer."
I lowered the gun an inch.
"What did you do?"
"I started bringing her things. Water. A phone once, but the signal was blocked. A nail file."
I looked at the message carved into the wall.
"The nail file."
He nodded.
"She said if you ever came back, you would look for evidence before believing anyone. She knew you."
Shame burned in my throat.
I had come home ready to break every door in the house, but for two weeks before that, I had let my mother's story live in my head. I had wondered whether Grace really had left me.
"Where did they take her?"
"There's a tunnel under the old wine cellar. It connects the west wing to the carriage house and the river road."
I knew of tunnels beneath the estate, but my father had sealed most of them when I was a teenager.
"My mother reopened them?"
"Years ago."
A siren began to howl through the mansion.
Elias stiffened.
"That's not the fire alarm."
I knew that tone.
Lockdown.
Steel shutters dropped over the west-wing windows with a heavy crash.
My phone lost signal.
Then the house intercom clicked.
My mother's voice filled the corridor.
"Adrian, I gave you every chance to come home as my son."
A beat.
"Now you'll have to survive as my enemy."
May you like
The steel door behind us began to close.
And Elias said, "If that door seals, the room floods with gas."
