Chapter 4 - THE TROWEL IN THE OVERGROWN IVY
“What are you doing?” Victoria hissed, her eyes wild with panic.
She wasn’t wearing her cream silk robe anymore. She had thrown on a dark trench coat over her pajamas, her expensive shoes ruined by the mud.
“He’s down there!” I shouted, pushing her arm away. “Help me pull this grate!”
Victoria stumbled back, lowering the trowel.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Adrian will kill us. He told me to pack my bags and wait for the van. If he finds out I helped Dominic…”
“He’s going to kill you anyway, Victoria!” I grabbed her shoulders, shaking her hard. “He called a coroner’s van! You think he’s going to leave a witness alive who knows he murdered Grace?”
Victoria’s face drained of whatever color was left.
“A coroner’s van?”
“Yes! Now help me!”
I dropped to my knees, gripping the rusted iron bars of the ventilation grate. Victoria hesitated for a split second, then dropped the trowel and grabbed the bars next to me.
“On three,” I said, my hands bleeding against the coarse metal. “One. Two. Three!”
We pulled with everything we had.
With a sickening screech of rusted metal, the grate broke free from the stone foundation.
We threw it aside, panting heavily.
I leaned into the dark, narrow shaft. It was barely two feet wide, dropping straight down into pitch blackness.
“Dominic!” I yelled into the hole.
A voice echoed back, hoarse and ragged.
“Hannah?”
“I’m here! Are you hurt?”
“The air is thin,” Dominic coughed. “Adrian locked the steel vault door. I can’t break it.”
I looked around frantically. I couldn’t pull him up a ten-foot vertical drop without a rope.
“I need something to lower down to you!” I shouted.
“The garden hose,” Victoria gasped, pointing toward the spigot near the greenhouse doors.
I ran over, grabbing the heavy industrial hose, unspooling it as fast as I could. I dragged it back to the vent and dropped the brass nozzle down into the darkness.
“Got it,” Dominic’s voice echoed.
“Can you climb?” I asked.
“Pull,” he grunted.
Victoria and I braced our feet against the stone foundation. We wrapped the hose around our waists and pulled with every ounce of strength we had.
Slowly, agonizingly, Dominic scaled the narrow brick shaft.
His hand broke the surface, grabbing the edge of the stone.
I lunged forward, grabbing his wrist, pulling him up onto the wet grass.
Dominic collapsed onto the lawn, coughing violently, his chest heaving as he sucked in the cold night air. His hands were scraped and bloody from the bricks.
“Are you okay?” I asked, kneeling beside him.
He didn't answer immediately. He looked at me, then at Victoria, who was trembling like a leaf.
Dominic stood up. The exhaustion vanished, replaced by an aura of pure, lethal authority.
“Where is Sophie?” he demanded.
“I hid her in the kitchen pantry,” I said quickly. “Adrian shot at Marco in the security office. Marco triggered the alarms to give us cover.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Adrian is dead,” Dominic said softly. It wasn’t a threat. It was a fact.
He turned to Victoria.
“You helped her pull me out.”
Victoria nodded, tears spilling down her face. “I didn't know he killed Grace, Dominic. I swear to God. I just wanted to be your wife.”
Dominic looked at her for a long moment.
“Go to the front gate. Tell the guards to let you out. Run, Victoria. Because if you’re here when this is over, you’ll go down with him.”
Victoria didn't need to be told twice. She turned and sprinted toward the front of the estate, disappearing into the dark.
Dominic reached to his ankle, pulling a small, backup snub-nosed revolver from a hidden holster.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered.
We ran back toward the mansion. The red emergency strobes were still flashing, casting eerie shadows across the manicured lawns.
When we reached the back patio doors, they were shattered.
Dominic stepped inside, his gun raised.
The house was eerily silent beneath the wailing of the alarms.
We made our way toward the kitchen.
My heart hammered against my ribs. I prayed Sophie was still hiding where I left her.
As we rounded the corner into the main kitchen, the emergency lights flickered over a terrifying scene.
The pantry door was wide open.
And standing in the center of the kitchen, holding a struggling Sophie by the arm, was Adrian.
He held his pistol aimed directly at Marco, who was kneeling on the floor, bleeding from a gunshot wound to his shoulder.
“Let her go,” Dominic said.
His voice cut through the alarm sirens like a knife.
Adrian spun around, pulling Sophie in front of him as a human shield.
“Dominic,” Adrian smiled, looking at his brother. “You always were difficult to kill.”
“Let my daughter go, Adrian.”
“I don't think so,” Adrian said, pressing the barrel of his gun against Sophie’s head. “I think we’re going to take a walk to the coroner’s van.”
Sophie was crying, holding my cheap silver locket so tightly her knuckles were white.
“Daddy,” she whimpered.
Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't lower his gun.
“Answer one question for me, Adrian,” Dominic said calmly, taking a slow step forward.
Adrian frowned. “What?”
“If you pushed Grace into the river, like you said...”
Dominic tilted his head.
“Why does Sophie have a key to a room in the conservatory?”
Adrian’s confident smile faltered.
“What key?” Adrian asked.
Dominic looked at his brother in genuine confusion.
“The silver key you gave her. The one she said opens the room where her mother is waiting.”
Adrian stared at him.
“I didn't give her a key, Dominic. I’ve never given her anything.”
The air in the kitchen went completely still.
If Adrian didn't give Sophie the key... who did?
Before anyone could process the realization, a voice echoed from the shadows of the dining room hallway.
A soft, female voice.
May you like
“I did.”
TITLE: THE SCARF HANGING IN THE SHADOWS
