Chapter 5 - The First Witness
At 8:43, a woman in a weather-stained trench coat strode into the mansion with two uniformed officers behind her.
Detective Mara Keene took one look at the smashed glass, wounded guards, and child curled up on Anika's lap.
“Roman,” she said. “Please tell me you've finally called because you intend to cooperate.”
“Six people are trapped under the property. We have seventeen minutes.”
Mara didn't waste a second. She radioed her captain, requested a confined-space rescue team, and sent one officer to secure Dax.
“Where's Victor Calder?”
“Running,” Roman said.
“Of course he is.”
Elena handed her the receipt and log photographs. Mara scanned the names, then looked up sharply.
“Tomas Moreno? His brother filed a missing-person report. We found blood in a shipping shed and were told the shed was cleaned after a workplace accident.”
“That was my uncle's company,” Roman said.
“And yours, on paper.”
“Then put me in cuffs after we get them out.”
Mara studied him. “I may take you up on that.”
A medic examined Elena's wrist and taped a dressing over her cut cheek. Maisie refused to leave her mother's side, so Anika sat between them on the stairs and let the girl hold both their hands.
“Did I do the right thing?” Maisie asked.
Elena pulled her close. “You did the bravest thing I've ever seen.”
“What if the bad man comes back?”
“Then he finds a lot more people waiting for him,” Mara said.
Roman wasn't sure whether Maisie found that comforting. He was sure he didn't.
Anika returned with a laptop and the old estate blueprints. “The flood station isn't under the mansion. The service tunnel runs beneath the private road and connects to Pump House Twelve, on the river.”
Roman stared at the drawings. His father had commissioned the tunnel decades ago to keep floodwater away from worker housing. Victor had turned it into a route no one inspected.
Mara ordered two patrol cars to the pump house.
A dispatcher answered immediately. “Units already on scene. Pump house is empty. Doors chained from inside.”
Elena leaned over the blueprint. “They're looking at the wrong entrance.”
Her finger moved to a square marked ABANDONED BOILER SHAFT.
“There,” she said. “That's how they get people in.”
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At that moment, the radio crackled again.
“Detective, we've got a body at the river gate. Male. Blue work jacket. His name patch says MORENO.”
