Chapter 7 - The Midnight Infiltration
I couldn't wait for the courts. Not tonight.
Leaving two trusted private security guards outside Maya’s hospital door with strict orders to shoot anyone who tried to enter without Dr. Lin’s direct authorization, I rode with Henry back to Eleanor’s estate in Lake Forest.
The mansion stood behind towering wrought-iron gates, dark and imposing against the gray winter sky. The front lawn was littered with catering trucks still packing up champagne flutes and banquet chairs from the Drake after-party that had been abruptly canceled.
We used my old keycard at the side gate. The sprawling house was dead silent, save for the hum of the climate-controlled wine cellar.
"Where would she keep her?" Henry asked under his breath as we walked through the marble-floored foyer. "The guest rooms upstairs are all immaculate."
"She wouldn't put Maya upstairs," I said, a dark memory clawing at my subconscious. "When I was a boy, whenever I disappointed Eleanor, she had a special place."
I walked down the grand corridor, past the framed oil portraits of ancestors who had made fortunes in steel and railroads, straight toward the back pantry behind the industrial kitchen.
Behind a row of heavy mahogany spice cabinets stood a nondescript door, painted the exact same cream color as the walls to conceal it. It was an old butler's storage closet, barely five feet wide, with no windows and thick, heavy insulation.
I grabbed the brass knob. It was locked from the outside with a heavy brass slide bolt.
A slide bolt on a closet door.
With a surge of adrenaline, I slammed my shoulder against the wood. Once. Twice. The latch tore out of the drywall with a sickening splintering sound.
The smell that hit us was suffocating. Stale urine, damp mildew, and unwashed fear.
Henry shone his phone light inside.
May you like
There was no bed. Only a stained dog blanket spread across the bare concrete floor. In the corner sat a plastic bucket half-filled with stagnant water. Scratched into the baseboard near the floor were crude tally marks made with a rusty nail.
And lying on the edge of the blanket was the singed, charred head of a stuffed brown bear.
