Chapter 15 - THE TUNNEL BENEATH SITE B
Shaw forced Beatrice down three flights of concrete stairs while alarms screamed above them.
His hand dug into the bruises already covering her arm.
Beatrice stumbled once and nearly lost Lily's rabbit.
Shaw grabbed the toy by one ear.
"Leave it."
Beatrice snatched it back.
"No."
He stared at her.
"You are being kidnapped and you are arguing about a stuffed animal."
"It belongs to a six-year-old you helped terrorize."
"That is exactly why sentiment makes people weak."
"No."
Beatrice held the rabbit tighter.
"It makes you predictable to people who have never loved anybody."
Shaw's expression hardened.
Then he shoved her through a steel door.
The stairwell opened into a narrow service tunnel beneath the records facility.
Old pipes ran along the ceiling.
Emergency bulbs flashed every twenty feet.
One of Shaw's men waited beside a utility cart.
"South exit is clear."
"Drive."
Beatrice was pushed into the passenger seat between them.
The cart rattled through the tunnel while distant impacts sounded above as federal agents entered Site B.
Inside the rabbit, Mateo's transmitter continued sending.
The signal weakened beneath concrete but did not disappear.
In the surveillance van, Leo listened to Beatrice breathing.
Mateo watched the signal crawl across a digital map.
"They're moving south."
Leo grabbed his coat.
"Then we move south."
A federal agent blocked the door.
"Your people stay outside the perimeter."
Leo stared at him.
"He has Beatrice."
"And we are recovering her."
"You are two minutes behind."
"Which is better than creating crossfire."
Mateo put one hand against Leo's chest.
"He's right."
Leo turned on him.
"Do not start."
"The transmitter still works."
"Until it doesn't."
"Then we use the time it gives us."
Leo looked at the pulsing dot.
The dot suddenly stopped.
Everyone froze.
Then it moved again.
Faster.
"Vehicle," Mateo said.
Outside the service tunnel, Shaw transferred Beatrice into an unmarked maintenance van.
His guard zip-tied her wrists in front of her.
Beatrice winced as the plastic tightened against her injured hand.
Shaw sat across from her.
"You could make this easier."
"People keep saying that right before making things worse."
"Read the confession."
"No."
"I can have Lily brought to us."
Beatrice's face went still.
Shaw smiled.
"There it is."
"The lever."
She looked directly at him.
"You don't know where she is."
"Dante built her security."
"Dante is in custody."
For the first time, Shaw's smile slipped.
Beatrice saw it.
"You didn't know."
He said nothing.
"You lost Dante."
Still nothing.
"You lost Voss."
"You lost the bank box."
"And Victoria just told a room full of microphones that you ordered her to scare Lily."
Shaw's eyes changed.
Beatrice smiled despite the fear in her stomach.
"You should have taken the rabbit."
His gaze dropped to the toy.
Too late.
He ripped it from her hands and tore open the repaired seam.
Stuffing spilled across the van floor.
The tiny transmitter blinked once in his palm.
Shaw crushed it beneath his shoe.
In the surveillance van, the signal vanished.
Leo went white.
"No."
Mateo checked the last coordinates.
"We have direction."
"Direction is not location."
"The van was heading northeast."
Leo looked at the map.
Northeast from Joliet offered dozens of routes.
Then Beatrice's last words replayed in his mind.
You should have taken the rabbit.
She had deliberately exposed the transmitter.
Why?
Because she wanted Shaw to destroy it at a useful moment.
Mateo understood too.
"She wanted us to mark where the route changed."
Leo looked at the final point.
The van had turned onto an access road serving three properties.
One was a closed industrial park.
One was a church warehouse.
One belonged to a shell company Dante had used for Rossi estate maintenance.
Mateo zoomed in.
"Old service depot."
Leo's face hardened.
"It has vehicles with mansion access decals."
"Exactly."
They drove.
Inside the van, Shaw leaned close to Beatrice.
"That was clever."
"Thank you."
"It will not save you."
"You'd be surprised how often people say that to women who survive them."
The guard laughed once.
Shaw looked at him.
The guard stopped.
Beatrice watched the exchange.
Shaw needed obedience more than loyalty.
That made his people brittle.
"Why me?" she asked.
Shaw leaned back.
"We discussed this."
"No."
"You told me the story you want the public to hear."
"I am asking why Victoria chose me."
Shaw studied her.
Maybe arrogance made him answer.
Maybe he believed she would not live long enough for the answer to matter.
"Victoria spent her entire life second to Serena."
Beatrice said nothing.
"Serena was prettier, kinder, more admired, more trusted."
"Even after Victoria learned Harold was her real father, Serena remained the legitimate daughter."
"Then Serena married Leo and created a family Victoria believed should have been hers."
Beatrice's stomach turned.
"Victoria wanted Leo?"
Shaw smiled.
"Victoria wanted what Serena had."
"Leo was part of it."
"Lily was part of it."
"The house was part of it."
"Even grief was part of it."
Beatrice remembered Victoria arriving at the mansion after Serena's death with casseroles, flowers, and endless offers to help.
She had not moved in immediately.
She had made herself necessary one kindness at a time.
"She used Serena's death to replace her."
"She tried."
"And Lily never accepted her."
Shaw's smile sharpened.
"Lily accepted you."
There it was.
Beatrice understood every petty cruelty with new clarity.
Victoria had not hated Beatrice because she was a maid.
She hated her because Lily loved her without being taught to.
"So she wanted me blamed."
"She suggested you were ideal."
"Poor."
"Unmarried."
"Emotionally attached to Serena."
"No influential family."
"No public reputation."
"And easy to describe as resentful."
Beatrice laughed softly.
Shaw frowned.
"What is funny?"
"You people spent years not looking at me."
"Then when you needed a villain, you built one out of everything you never bothered to know."
Shaw's eyes narrowed.
"You are not a villain."
"You are a witness."
"Witnesses can be rewritten."
The van stopped at the maintenance depot.
They changed vehicles.
Beatrice noticed the new SUV carried a Rossi estate access decal.
Her stomach dropped.
"We're going back to the mansion."
Shaw smiled.
"Very good."
"Why?"
"Because every good confession needs a believable location."
Beatrice stared at him.
"The cellar."
"Exactly."
The rage she felt was so clean it steadied her.
Shaw intended to return her to the place where Lily nearly died and make that room the stage for a false ending.
"What happens after I read your script?"
"You disappear."
"And Victoria?"
Shaw looked toward the window.
"Victoria has always confused being useful with being safe."
Beatrice understood.
He planned to kill her too.
At Site B, federal agents found Victoria still tied to the chair.
She was furious, bruised, and shouting before they finished cutting the restraints.
"He took Beatrice."
An agent told her to stay seated.
Victoria ignored him.
"You don't understand."
"Edmund is going to the Rossi house."
The agent stopped.
"How do you know?"
"Because that was always the end of the contingency plan."
"What plan?"
Victoria looked around the room.
Then at the broken camera.
Then at the federal badges.
For the first time, self-preservation and truth pointed in the same direction.
"The maid confesses in the cellar."
"Then she dies there."
The lead agent stared at her.
"How?"
Victoria swallowed.
"A staged overdose."
"The story says guilt made her confess and take her own life."
The agent's face hardened.
"You helped plan that?"
Victoria looked away.
"Yes."
"And Lily?"
Victoria's voice became smaller.
"Lily was never supposed to die."
"She was supposed to be found frightened, pointing at Beatrice."
"The key in Beatrice's room would do the rest."
The agent stared at her in disgust.
"You locked an asthmatic six-year-old in a cellar to create a witness."
Victoria closed her eyes.
"I thought she had another inhaler."
"You took it from her."
Victoria's eyes opened.
"I took the one in her pocket."
"I thought Beatrice had another."
The room went silent.
She realized what she had admitted.
Then a guard rushed in.
"We have Rossi on the line."
Victoria stood.
"Tell him the cellar microphone still works."
The agent frowned.
"What microphone?"
"Nico activated an old maintenance mic."
"Edmund doesn't know it remained active after the system reset."
Victoria looked toward the door.
"If Leo gets the estate network back online, he can hear everything in that cellar."
At that exact moment, Shaw's SUV passed through the Rossi service gate using Dante's old access credential.
The mansion security system accepted it without question.
Beatrice looked through the tinted glass at the house where she had spent years becoming invisible.
Shaw leaned toward her.
May you like
"Welcome home."
