Chapter 3 - The Rear Hallway
While death waited in the mahogany-paneled study, fifty yards away in the quiet darkness of the staff quarters, Claire Bennett could not sleep.
She sat on the edge of her narrow cot, staring at the ceiling where the amber glow of a security light cast long, shivering shadows through the lace curtains. Lily was curled up beside her, breathing softly, one small hand clutching the corner of a faded pink blanket.
Claire’s heart was still hammering against her ribs.
The encounter in the study had shaken her to her core. For three years, she had lived in the shadow of the Calloway estate like a ghost, keeping her head down, doing her work, praying that her past wouldn't catch up to her, praying that nobody would look too closely at her forged employment references or her dead husband’s unpaid debts.
She had thought Vincent Calloway was a monster—a ruthless mobster who chewed up lives and spat them out without a second thought.
But when Lily had looked up at him with those innocent, unblinking eyes, and when Vincent had turned toward the window to hide a grief so old and heavy it practically vibrated in the air... Claire had seen something else.
She had seen a man who was just as trapped in his fortress as she was in hers.
A soft sound echoed from the hallway outside their apartment.
Creak.
It wasn't the wind. The old timber of the mansion settled often, but this was rhythmic. Heavy footsteps, moving with quiet, purposeful speed along the service corridor that connected the staff quarters to the main mansion's basement vaults.
Claire slipped off the bed, careful not to wake Lily. She padded across the cold linoleum floor in her bare feet, her breath catching in her throat. She pressed her ear against the wooden door.
Clack. Clack.
Hard soles on the stone flagstones of the service corridor.
She reached out and turned the doorknob, pulling it open by an inch. The hallway was dimly lit by a single yellow bulb hanging from a braided wire.
Passing the door, walking toward the east exit that led to the gravel parking lot, was Gordon Pike.
He was carrying a heavy leather briefcase in one hand and a silenced pistol in the other. His coat was half-buttoned, his tie slightly crooked, and his face was twisted into a look of cold, frantic desperation that completely shattered his polite butler persona.
Claire’s blood ran cold.
Gordon never carried a gun. Gordon never walked the service corridors after midnight unless there was an emergency. And Gordon looked like a man who had just committed a murder and was running for the border.
She looked back at Lily, sleeping peacefully in the bed. Then she looked down the dark hallway toward the stairs leading up to the master study.
Mr. Calloway.
May you like
If Gordon was running, and if he had a gun... what had happened in the study?
Claire didn't hesitate. She didn't think about her job, her safety, or the rule about staying out of the main house. She pulled a heavy wool cardigan over her shoulders, stepped out of the apartment, and began to follow the estate manager into the dark heart of the Calloway mansion.
