Chapter 57 - The Second Key
"Which means," Julian said, his eyes glittering in the thin penlight beam, "they don't want to kill you, Clara. They need you alive. They brought you back to Oakton to force your signature."
"My father didn't come to warn me," I said, remembering the blood on his coat, the way he had begged me in the driveway. "He was trying to intercept me before Hannah's people did. He knew if they caught me, Hannah would take everything and leave him to rot."
"And Arthur?" Julian asked, nodding down the long, pitch-black tunnel ahead of us. "Your grandfather. Where is he?"
The tunnel ran dead straight under the town, following the ancient gradient of the mill stream. As we moved briskly through the knee-deep black water, the air grew colder and began to smell of low tide—salt, decaying kelp, and marsh mud.
After three hundred yards, the concrete gave way to rough-hewn granite blocks dating back to the nineteenth century. At the end of the corridor stood an iron gate, rusted shut and wrapped in heavy anchor chains.
Beside the gate was a small brass plate with a digital numeric pad—glowing softly green in the absolute dark.
Above the keypad was a handwritten note taped to the cold stone:
*The date you left them, Clara. The date you stopped being their slave.*
My fingers hovered over the keypad.
It had been four months ago. A cold Tuesday night in November. My twenty-fifth birthday. The night they told me that Hannah’s canceled credit card was more important than my twenty-five years of quiet service.
May you like
I punched in the six digits: *1-1-1-4-2-4.*
The mechanism gave a sharp mechanical whine. The heavy chains clattered to the stone floor, and the iron gate swung inward on greased pivots with a breath of frigid sea air.
