Chapter 8 - The Tunnel Beneath the Floor
The attic was a stifling labyrinth of dust, forgotten furniture, and stacked cardboard boxes smelling of decades of neglect. Behind a row of moldy canvas tarps, Arthur had pointed me toward a heavy iron trapdoor set flush into the floorboards.
I dropped the Pelican case, slid the iron bolt, and heaved the heavy door upward. A draft of damp, cool air rushed up from the subterranean darkness below, smelling of stagnant water and wet earth.
I flicked on my phone flashlight, illuminating a steep, cobweb-laced brick staircase spiraling downward into the earth. Without hesitating, I grabbed the Pelican case, tucked the black ledger tightly under my arm, and descended into the dark, pulling the iron trapdoor shut behind me with a muffled thud.
The brick tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for my shoulders, dripping with condensation. According to Arthur, it ran three hundred yards beneath the rolling lawns of the estate straight down to the old wooden boathouse on the edge of Silver Lake.
As I jogged carefully down the sloping concrete floor, the audio recorder in my pocket seemed to burn against my ribs. Reagan isn't who she says she is...
Who was she? And how deep did this conspiracy go if a federal prosecutor from D.C. was pulling the strings?
Ten minutes later, the narrow brick corridor opened up into a wider stone chamber lit by a faint, pale beam of moonlight filtering down through a cracked floorboard overhead. I had reached the boathouse.
I climbed a short set of wooden ladder rungs leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling and pushed it open.
Fresh, sharp lake air hit my face. I pulled myself up into the dusty, abandoned interior of the boathouse. Old fishing nets hung from the rafters, and an empty wooden boat cradle sat in the center of the floor. The lake outside was calm, a black mirror reflecting the bruised twilight sky.
I walked toward the side sliding door, my hand reaching for the latch to step out onto the wooden dock—and froze.
Parked on the gravel path outside the boathouse was a sleek, unmarked black sedan. Its engine was idling softly, exhaust pipes pluming faint white clouds into the crisp air. Leaning against the driver’s door, smoking a cigarette in the gathering gloom, was a man in an expensive charcoal suit.
He turned his head slowly as the boathouse door creaked.
Even in the shadows, I recognized the sharp, patrician jawline and cold, calculating eyes. It was Julian Vance.
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"You know, Finnley," Julian called out smoothly, tossing his cigarette onto the gravel and grinding it out with his polished Italian leather shoe, "for an ex-con who spent three years rotting in a medium-security cell, you really have a knack for making things difficult."
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