CHAPTER 2 — THE MAN BEHIND THE WALL
Adrian ordered three officers toward the restoration wing.
I followed them.
“Mara,” he warned, “you should stay with the police.”
“If Julian erased the footage, I want to hear why.”
The east gallery had been emptied during the lockdown. Our footsteps echoed beneath vaulted ceilings lined with portraits of dead kings and forgotten generals.
Julian’s badge continued moving on Adrian’s tablet.
Slowly.
Then faster.
“He’s approaching the conservation laboratory,” Adrian said.
We reached a pair of locked wooden doors.
One officer entered a code.
Rejected.
He tried the emergency override.
Rejected again.
“Julian changed the system,” Adrian said.
I stepped toward the keypad and entered a master sequence known only to three members of the Vale family.
The lock released.
Inside, tables were covered with microscopes, restoration tools, and partially cleaned paintings. A chemical odor hung in the air.
No Julian.
His badge signal moved behind the far wall.
Adrian examined the paneling.
“This section isn’t on the architectural plans.”
I noticed scratches near the baseboard.
Fresh ones.
An officer pressed against the molding. Nothing happened.
I studied the paintings mounted along the wall. One was an unfinished portrait of a woman wearing a blue sapphire necklace.
The necklace had been painted with unusual detail.
I touched the sapphire.
A hidden mechanism clicked.
The entire wall shifted inward.
A narrow corridor appeared behind it.
Adrian looked at me.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
We entered single file.
The passage was barely wide enough for one person. Stone walls closed around us, and the air smelled of dust and cold metal.
Julian’s badge signal had stopped.
Twenty feet ahead, something reflected the beam of Adrian’s flashlight.
Blood.
A dark streak crossed the stone floor.
We found Julian near a steel service door.
He was alive, but barely conscious.
His tuxedo jacket had been torn open. Blood soaked the white shirt beneath his ribs.
Adrian knelt beside him.
“Who did this?”
Julian’s eyes opened.
He saw me and tried to move away.
“Mara…”
“Who attacked you?”
“I didn’t erase it.”
“Your code was used.”
“They made me give it to them.”
“Who?”
Julian began trembling.
Adrian pressed a cloth against his wound.
“Stay awake.”
Julian’s fingers closed around my wrist.
“They know about the archive.”
“What archive?”
“Your mother’s.”
My breath stopped.
My mother had died eighteen years earlier.
According to my father, nearly everything she owned had been destroyed in the car accident that killed her.
“Who knows about it?” I asked.
Julian swallowed painfully.
“Not Grant.”
His grip tightened.
“His mother.”
“Celeste Holloway?”
Julian’s eyes filled with panic.
“She was never supposed to know you found the key.”
“I didn’t find any key.”
His expression changed.
Confusion.
Then horror.
He looked past my shoulder.
Adrian spun around.
The hidden wall began closing behind us.
Someone had activated the mechanism from the gallery.
The stone passage went dark.
And from the other side of the steel door, I heard a woman’s voice.
Soft.
Elegant.
May you like
Familiar.
“Hello, Mara.”
