Chapter 8 - The Chapel Beneath the ChapelThe old chapel stood behind the eastern gardens, half concealed by cypress trees and climbing ivy.
I'd passed it dozens of times while carrying laundry to the mansion. Its doors were usually locked, and the estate staff referred to it as the old chapel, a building Dante's father had kept for private family ceremonies.
At 7:12 p.m., I stood before its entrance with the small key in my hand.
Dante refused to let me go alone.
“Your husband specifically wrote that instruction,” he said.
“My husband also apparently knew about a tunnel into my daughter's bedroom. Forgive me if I'm no longer inclined to follow his instructions blindly.”
“Fair point.”
He signaled two guards to remain outside.
Teresa stayed with Sophie and Bruno at the clinic. I had insisted on that arrangement after learning how many people on the estate might be compromised.
Dante unlocked the chapel.
The interior was dark except for a row of candles near the altar. Dust covered the wooden pews. A faded mural depicted a saint holding a lantern, its painted face obscured by years of moisture.
I approached the altar.
The key fit a small lock concealed beneath the central step.
A section of flooring opened.
Cold air rose from below.
Another tunnel.
I looked at Dante.
“Does your family own a building without secret passages?”
“Not one worth remembering.”
We descended a narrow stone staircase.
At the bottom, the passage widened into a chamber containing a desk, a cot, several empty food tins, and a portable radio.
Someone had been living there.
On the desk sat a photograph of Sophie as a baby, asleep against Miguel's chest.
Beside it was a stack of letters addressed to me.
Every letter was sealed.
Every letter bore a date.
The first had been written six days after Miguel supposedly died.
The last had been written three weeks ago.
I touched the top envelope.
My hands began to shake.
“Why would he write all these and never send them?”
Dante examined the room.
“Someone may have been collecting them.”
He found a small steel cabinet behind the desk. Inside lay financial documents, copies of bank transfers, and several identity cards bearing different names.
One of them carried Miguel's photograph.
The name beneath it belonged to a man who had died in a car accident two years earlier.
I sank onto the cot.
“He was alive all this time.”
Dante crouched beside me.
“I don't know what he believed he was protecting you from.”
I held up one of the letters.
“You don't get to protect someone by removing their right to choose.”
“No,” he said quietly. “You don't.”
That answer surprised me.
We searched the rest of the chamber. Behind a loose brick, Dante found a small recorder and a folded map of the estate's underground passages.
The map marked six access points.
Five were labeled with dates.
The sixth was circled in red.
OCTOBER 14. 9:00 P.M.
Tomorrow's dinner.
Or rather, tonight's dinner. The clock aboveground had already passed eight.
A sound echoed from the staircase.
Someone was descending.
Dante raised his weapon and motioned for me to hide behind the desk.
Footsteps approached.
Then a familiar voice spoke from the darkness.
“Isabel?”
I forgot how to breathe.
The man emerged from the staircase slowly, his face thinner than the photographs, his hair threaded with gray.
The scar along his cheek was unmistakable.
His left hand remained curled close to his body.
But his eyes were the same eyes that had looked at me across a cheap kitchen table and promised that we would always find a way through our troubles.
“Miguel,” I whispered.
He stopped.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then I crossed the chamber and struck him across the face.
He accepted it without raising a hand.
I hit him again.
“Three years!”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
“You let me bury you!”
“I know.”
“You let your daughter grow up without a father!”
His mouth trembled.
“I know.”
I wanted to scream until the stone walls collapsed.
Instead, I shoved him backward.
“Then tell me why.”
Miguel looked at Dante.
The two men exchanged a glance full of old debts and unfinished business.
Then my husband turned back to me.
“Because the man who killed me was your daughter's godfather.”
May you like
He swallowed.
“And he's sitting at our dinner table tonight.”
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