Chapter 2 - THE GIRL IN THE WALLS
The knocking echoed through the cavernous hallway, hollow and frantic. It wasn’t a ghost. My nursing instincts kicked in before my fear did. Ghosts didn’t have a rhythm. Ghosts didn’t sound like they were running out of air.
Dominic froze on the staircase, the exhaustion in his face instantly replaced by a lethal, terrifying alertness. He didn’t look like a man who had nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning hours ago. He looked like the head of the Caruso family.
“Marcus,” Dominic’s voice was a low, dangerous rumble. “Open those doors.”
Marcus, the head of security, drew his weapon. He moved with trained precision, shoving the heavy walnut doors open. The library was still sweltering, the residual heat from the tampered fireplace clinging to the leather-bound books and heavy velvet drapes.
The knocking stopped the moment the doors hit the wall.
“Where is it coming from?” Anthony demanded, appearing at the top of the stairs. His impeccably styled hair was slightly disheveled, and the sudden panic in his eyes was impossible to ignore. “The room is empty. You’re all hearing things—”
“Shut up, Anthony,” Dominic snapped, stepping past the threshold. He didn’t turn on the lights. He walked straight toward the massive oak bookshelf flanking the fireplace. He pressed his ear against the wood.
Then, he knocked back. Three sharp taps.
A tiny, muffled whimper responded from inside the wall.
My breath caught in my throat. I pushed past Anthony, ignoring his protests, and hurried to Dominic’s side. “There’s someone in there. A child?”
“A panic room,” Dominic murmured, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked beneath his skin. “Built during the Prohibition era. I haven’t opened it in a decade.” He ran his large hands along the intricately carved molding of the bookshelf, his fingers desperately searching for the hidden release mechanism. “Help me push.”
I didn’t hesitate. I threw my weight against the heavy wood, my shoulder aching as Marcus joined us. With a harsh, grinding scrape of metal, the entire bookshelf swung outward, revealing a narrow, pitch-black cavity hidden in the architecture of the mansion.
I grabbed the flashlight from Marcus’s hand and shined it into the darkness.
Cowering in the corner of the dusty, airless space was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than five or six years old. She wore a faded pink nightgown that was too thin for the chill of the hidden passage, and her knees were pulled tightly to her chest. Her face was streaked with soot and tears, her dark hair tangled in wild curls.
But it wasn’t her presence that made the air completely vanish from my lungs.
It was her face. She had Dominic’s sharp jawline, but her large, terrified green eyes were a mirror image of the portrait hanging in the hallway. She looked exactly like Elena Caruso. The wife who had died four years ago.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered, dropping to my knees. My nurse’s training overrode the shock. I reached out slowly, keeping my hands visible. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. I’m Claire. Can you come to me?”
The little girl flinched, her tiny fingers clutching an object tightly to her chest. As the beam of my flashlight hit it, the object caught the light. It was a heavy, ornate silver rosary.
Behind me, Dominic let out a sound that I had never heard a man make—a sound of pure, shattered disbelief. He staggered forward, his massive frame trembling violently.
“That’s impossible,” Dominic choked out, staring at the silver beads. “I buried her with that. I wrapped it around Elena’s hands in the casket myself.”
My mind raced. Answer one: the woman the housekeeper saw wasn’t a ghost; she was someone hiding a child in the walls. Open two: whose child was this, and how did she get a rosary from a sealed grave?
Before I could ask, the little girl finally moved. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t look at Dominic. She pointed a tiny, trembling finger past us, straight out into the hallway.
“Are you the monster?” her small voice echoed in the silent library.
May you like
I turned. She wasn’t pointing at Dominic. She was pointing directly at Anthony.
“He said you wouldn’t hear me,” the child whispered, her green eyes locked on Dominic’s brother. “He said if I made a sound, the fire would eat me.”
