Chapter 5 - The Man in the Hallway
The room went dark.
Ethan swore and shoved past me toward the doorway. I heard shoes scrape stone, then a heavy impact in the cellar corridor.
By the time Dad found the switch on the wall, a man was running up the stairs.
Ghost exploded after him.
“Ghost!” I shouted.
Ethan chased them outside.
I followed far enough to see a gray SUV tearing away from the service road behind the vines. Ghost stopped at the edge of the lane, barking into exhaust.
“Did you see him?” I asked.
Ethan shook his head. “Black coat. Baseball cap.”
Richard came out slower, one hand pressed against his chest.
“You see?” he said. “This is exactly why we should let police handle it.”
Dad laughed once. “You mean now?”
Richard stepped toward him. “Careful.”
“No. You be careful. Claire was scared of you in 1989, and somebody is still scared of that tape today.”
I turned to Dad. “Who was Thomas Bell?”
He stared at Richard.
“A vineyard worker.”
Eleanor answered more sharply. “He was more than that. Thomas grew up here. His father managed the land before the Coles bought it. He knew every drain, tunnel, and storage room on the property.”
“What happened to him?”
“Officially?” Dad said. “He fell from the north ridge after drinking.”
“And unofficially?”
No one spoke.
Ethan’s phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen and frowned.
“What?” I asked.
He turned the phone toward me.
A text from an unknown number.
STOP DIGGING OR THE NEXT BOX WILL HAVE A BODY IN IT.
My stomach dropped.
Richard said, “Give me the phone.”
Ethan pulled it away.
“No.”
For the first time all day, he looked less like Richard’s son and more like a man realizing he might not know his own family.
Another message appeared.
This one included a photograph.
It showed my father leaving a motel room in 1989.
May you like
Beside him was Claire Cole.
And she was visibly pregnant.
