Chapter 3 - The Secret Beneath the Manor
At 2:15 AM, three vehicles carrying state police detectives and forensic analysts pulled up the long, winding driveway of the Vance estate.
Julian met the lead investigator, Detective Chief Thomas Miller, in the foyer. Miller was a veteran investigator who had known the Vance family since Julian’s father had served as state senator.
"Julian," Miller said, taking off his hat and looking at the bloodstains on Julian’s trousers. "We got the call from Yale Trauma. The hospital social worker flagged it as an attempted homicide. What the hell happened here?"
"My fiancée attempted to murder my housekeeper," Julian said without a trace of emotion. "The footage is loaded on a flash drive sitting on that table. You have my full authorization to arrest Victoria Sterling immediately."
Miller blinked, visibly caught off guard. The Sterling family was one of the most powerful political dynasties in the Northeast; arresting Victoria Sterling was a career-ending move if the charges didn't stick.
"Julian... are you sure about this?" Miller asked softly. "You’re three months away from the wedding of the century."
"Watch the tape, Thomas," Julian said. "Then follow me."
Julian turned and led Miller, along with three armed state troopers, back toward the east conservatory.
The room remained untouched, preserved under the strict orders of Erickson’s security detail. The metallic smell of blood hung heavy in the air, mixing with the sharp scent of broken glass and damp earth leaking from the open hidden doorway.
Miller walked over to the pivoted mirror, pulling out his flash-beam torch and shining it into the dark brick passage beyond.
"What is this?" Miller asked, his voice instantly hardening into professional focus. "This house was built in 1890. It’s got secret service passages from the Underground Railroad era, doesn't it?"
"My grandfather bought this property in 1952," Julian said, taking a heavy flashlight from Erickson. "He sealed those passages. Or at least, I believed he did."
Julian stepped through the broken frame, stepping over the blood pool, and began descending the narrow brick stairs into the absolute darkness below.
"Julian, wait for forensics!" Miller called out, drawing his service weapon as he followed closely behind.
The stairs wound down nearly twenty feet into the bedrock beneath the estate, far deeper than the standard wine cellar or utility basements. The air grew rapidly colder, smelling of damp lime, ancient mortar, and something else—something fresh, medicinal, and foul.
At the bottom of the stairs, the passage opened into a reinforced concrete room roughly fifteen feet square.
It was not a dusty, abandoned ruin.
It was a fully functional, climate-controlled containment cell.
On one side sat a stainless steel sink, a plastic table covered in pharmaceutical bottles, and a row of intravenous saline bags hanging from an iron rack. On the other side sat a low cot bolted to the floor, equipped with heavy leather restraint straps at the wrists and ankles.
In the center of the room sat a small, wooden table.
On the table was a half-eaten bowl of cold broth, a stack of blank sketching paper, and a box of charcoal pencils.
Miller shone his flashlight onto the wall above the cot.
Covered across every square inch of the white concrete were hundreds of charcoal drawings.
Drawings of ships. Drawings of the ocean. Drawings of the Vance family crest.
And in the center of the wall, drawn with frantic, desperate strokes, was a life-sized portrait of Julian.
Beside the portrait, written in charcoal over and over again until the plaster had pitted, was a single date:
JULY 14, 2020.
The exact date of Leo Vance’s reported death.
Julian dropped to his knees in the center of the cold room, his hands trembling violently as he picked up a fresh drawing from the table.
It was a sketch of a lighthouse—the old lighthouse off Block Island where Leo used to spend his summers painting.
In the bottom right corner of the paper was a signature, delicate and unmistakably precise:
Leo.
May you like
Julian looked up at Detective Miller, his eyes filled with a terrifying, unholy light.
"He didn't die in that boat explosion," Julian whispered, his voice cracking. "She kept him down here. For six years."
