Chapter 2 - The Car in the Driveway
Emma sprinted to the small gap in the plywood window, pressing her eye to the crack between two boards.
Down below, at the end of the long, weed-choked gravel driveway, a black Mercedes sedan was idling near the rusted iron gates. The engine was silent, but the exhaust curled into the cold autumn air in grey plumes.
"He’s out of the car," Emma whispered, her voice tight. "He’s wearing a grey coat. He just unlocked the side porch door."
Lily looked down at the man in the chains. "Is your name Julian? Julian Vance?"
The man nodded once, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion. "Thirty years... I’ve been in this house for thirty years... but he put me in this box six months ago when the city started talking about demolition..."
"Why?" Lily asked, her fingers hovering over the green leather journal on the floor. "Why would your brother do this to you?"
"The estate," Julian whispered. "The Vance Trust... five hundred million dollars... it requires both signatures to dissolve... if I die... without a clear death certificate... the money goes to the state... so he keeps me alive just enough... to sign the annual proxy forms..."
Footsteps echoed from the ground floor below—heavy, deliberate leather soles clicking across the parquet floor of the foyer.
"He’s inside," Emma said, stepping back from the window. "He’s taking the front stairs."
"We can't leave him," Lily said, reaching down to grab the green journal and shoving it into her canvas backpack. "If we run, he'll know someone was here. The wall is open!"
Emma looked at the heavy plaster panel hanging open on its screeching iron hinge. She looked at Julian, who had closed his eyes, his breathing shallow and rapid. Then she looked at the crowbar in her hand.
"We can't close it from the inside," Emma said rapidly, her brain calculating angles and times. "The latch is on the outside mantle. If we close it, we lock ourselves in with him."
"Then we hide," Lily said.
"Where?" Emma gestured around the attic. "It’s a flat floor with three broken trunks!"
"Behind the chimney," Lily pointed to a dark nook behind the brick column where the roofline sloped down to meet the floor joists. "It's full of old insulation rolls. If we stay down, he won't see us unless he walks all the way behind the shaft."
"And what if he checks?"
"He's here to feed him or make him sign something," Lily said, grabbing Emma’s coat sleeve and dragging her toward the brick shaft. "He doesn't expect two high schoolers to be in his attic."
They jammed themselves into the narrow triangular space behind the brickwork, pulling two dusty rolls of yellow fiberglass insulation in front of their knees. Lily switched her phone flashlight off, plunging them into near-total darkness, save for the grey light spilling through the dormer cracks.
The heavy oak door at the top of the attic stairs swung open with a slow, dry groan.
The footsteps stopped on the landing.
A man’s voice, cultured, calm, and entirely devoid of warmth, called out into the quiet room.
"Julian? You’re noisy today. I could hear you from the second floor."
Arthur Vance stepped into the attic. Through a narrow gap between two bricks, Lily could see him clearly. He was in his late sixties, immaculate, wearing a tailored charcoal overcoat, polished black Oxfords, and thin gold-rimmed reading glasses hanging from a silver chain around his neck. He carried a small leather briefcase in his right hand and a brown paper bag in his left.
He didn't look like a monster. He looked like an accountant.
He walked straight to the mantle, set his briefcase on a dusty trunk, and reached for the carved oak leaf.
"I brought the quarterlies," Arthur said, his voice bouncing off the rafters. "And two turkey sandwiches. Though if you keep pounding on the timber, I might just leave the papers and take the food back to the club."
He shoved the iron lever down. The plaster wall creaked open the rest of the way.
Arthur stepped into the hidden room.
"What is this?" Arthur’s voice dropped, losing its dry humor instantly. "Why is there water on the floor?"
Lily held her breath, her fingers digging into the yellow fiberglass until her nails hurt.
Inside the cell, Julian didn't answer. He lay on his side, his face turned toward the floorboards, breathing heavily.
May you like
Arthur’s polished shoes stepped back out of the room. He looked down at the floorboards near the mantle. He saw the wet boot prints—two sets of small, treaded soles leading from the attic stairs straight to the hidden latch.
"Well," Arthur Vance said softly to the empty attic. "It seems we have guests."
