Chapter 9: The Body Beneath Wall Seventeen
Chapter 9: The Body Beneath Wall Seventeen
The ballroom erupted into chaos.
Guests screamed.
Several instinctively rushed toward the exits before security officers blocked the doors.
Crystal dust drifted from the ceiling like pale snow.
Detective Claire Donovan grabbed her radio.
"Report!"
Static crackled.
Then a strained voice answered.
"Part of the old wine cellar collapsed after we opened the sealed entrance."
A pause.
"We've located human remains."
The ballroom fell silent again.
Claire asked the question everyone feared.
"Recent?"
"No, Detective."
Another pause.
"Very old."
Richard Ashford closed his eyes.
Just for a heartbeat.
Then he opened them again.
Adrian noticed.
His father had recognized exactly what had been found.
"Seal the entire basement," Claire ordered.
"No one enters without forensic authorization."
She looked toward Adrian.
"I need you with me."
Richard immediately stepped forward.
"I'll accompany you."
"No."
Claire's answer was immediate.
"You're now a principal subject in an active homicide investigation."
"I haven't been charged."
"You haven't been cleared either."
Two officers quietly positioned themselves beside Richard.
It wasn't an arrest.
But everyone understood the message.
He wasn't leaving.
Ten minutes later...
The heavy steel doors leading to the original wine cellar groaned open.
Cold air drifted upward.
The smell of damp stone and old earth filled the narrow staircase.
Adrian hadn't been down there since childhood.
George Ashford had loved this cellar.
Not because of the wine.
Because it was quiet.
He used to play chess with Adrian there on rainy afternoons.
Back then...
Wall Seventeen had simply been another stretch of gray brick.
Now...
Half of it had collapsed.
Behind it...
A hidden chamber had been exposed.
Claire switched on her flashlight.
The beam swept across a room no larger than a walk-in closet.
There was no wine.
No furniture.
Only dust.
And in the center...
A human skeleton.
It sat slumped against the stone wall.
Its wrists were still bound with rusted wire.
Eleanor gasped.
"My God..."
Beside the skeleton lay a leather briefcase.
Completely untouched.
The leather had cracked with age, but the brass clasps remained closed.
Claire crouched carefully.
"No one touches anything."
The forensic photographer documented every angle.
Every crack.
Every fragment.
Then one technician looked toward Claire.
"Detective."
He pointed at the skeleton's neck.
"There appears to be jewelry."
Using gloved hands, Claire gently lifted a thin silver chain.
At its end...
A small locket.
She opened it.
Inside were two tiny photographs.
One showed a smiling young woman holding a little girl.
The other...
George Ashford.
Adrian's breath caught.
"Emily..."
Margaret whispered from behind him.
"It's Emily Bennett."
Victoria staggered backward.
Her knees nearly gave way.
"My mother..."
Tears streamed silently down her face.
For twenty-three years, she'd believed Emily had abandoned her.
Instead...
Emily had never left the Ashford Estate.
The room became eerily quiet.
Claire looked toward the forensic examiner.
"Cause of death?"
The elderly doctor adjusted his glasses.
"Impossible to determine immediately."
He leaned closer.
"But..."
He pointed toward the skull.
"There appears to be a fracture."
Adrian frowned.
"A fall?"
The doctor slowly shook his head.
"Unlikely."
He examined the crack again.
"This looks..."
He paused.
"...consistent with blunt force trauma."
The words echoed through the hidden chamber.
Not an accident.
A blow.
Claire carefully opened the leather briefcase.
Inside...
Everything had been wrapped in oilcloth to protect it from moisture.
One by one, she removed the contents.
George Ashford's handwritten financial ledgers.
Bank transfer records.
The original revised will.
Letters between Richard and Harold Whitmore.
A notebook belonging to Emily Bennett.
And finally...
A small VHS cassette.
Its label read:
"If I disappear."
Adrian stared at it.
Emily had recorded something.
Before she died.
Upstairs...
Richard waited alone in the ballroom.
The guests remained under police supervision.
No one spoke to him.
No one approached.
For the first time in decades...
Richard Ashford stood completely isolated.
He looked toward the staircase leading to the cellar.
His expression remained unreadable.
But inside...
His calculations had changed.
Emily's body wasn't supposed to be there.
He had believed...
For twenty-seven years...
That it had been moved.
Someone had lied to him.
Back in the cellar...
Claire carefully turned another page in Emily's notebook.
Most entries described ordinary life.
Sophia's first words.
School fees.
Bills.
Hope.
Then the handwriting changed.
It became hurried.
Uneven.
Fearful.
Claire read aloud.
"George says he has proof."
Another page.
"Richard knows I met George."
Another.
"If anything happens to me..."
Claire stopped.
She swallowed.
Then continued.
"...it wasn't George."
The room fell silent.
Another page.
"Richard isn't the man I'm afraid of anymore."
Adrian looked up sharply.
"What does that mean?"
Claire turned to the final completed page.
The ink had smeared slightly.
As if written with shaking hands.
Only one sentence appeared.
"There are two monsters now."
No name.
No explanation.
Just those five words.
Everyone looked at one another.
Two monsters.
Richard...
And who?
Margaret whispered,
"George never mentioned anyone else."
Victoria wiped away tears.
"My mother never wrote nonsense."
"If she said two..."
"...then there were two."
Adrian slowly looked toward Claire.
"You said Richard wasn't under arrest."
Claire nodded.
"Correct."
"And now?"
She didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she stared at the notebook.
Then at Emily's remains.
Finally, she spoke.
"This investigation just changed."
"How?"
Claire closed the notebook.
"Because if Emily feared someone other than Richard..."
She looked directly at Adrian.
"...then your grandfather may not have been the only intended victim."
Before anyone could respond, one of the forensic technicians called out from the far corner of the hidden chamber.
"Detective!"
Claire walked over.
The technician pointed his flashlight at the stone floor beneath the skeleton.
"There are footprints."
She frowned.
"Old?"
"No."
He looked up.
"They're fresh."
Everyone froze.
Fresh.
Someone had entered the hidden chamber...
after the wall collapsed.
Claire's hand instinctively moved to her holstered weapon.
"Everyone stay where you are."
The technician slowly swept his flashlight toward the darkest corner of the chamber.
There...
Behind a broken section of stone...
A narrow tunnel disappeared into complete darkness.
And from somewhere deep inside it...
Came the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
Someone else...
May you like
Was still beneath the mansion.
End of Chapter 9
