CHAPTER 15 THE HOUSE BEYOND THE LAKE
Agnes survived the gunshot.
The bullet had struck her shoulder.
Nathan applied pressure while Daniel contacted emergency services.
Police searched the coastal house and surrounding cliffs.
They found no sign of Clara.
No vehicle had left the property.
No boat had approached the shore.
Just as Mara had disappeared from the Whitmore mansion, Clara appeared to have vanished through the walls.
Agnes regained consciousness before the ambulance arrived.
“Don’t let them take me to St. Matthew’s,” she whispered.
Daniel remembered the false medical team.
He requested another hospital.
“Who shot you?”
Agnes looked toward the empty doorway.
“I don’t know which face she was wearing.”
“Was it Clara?”
“Clara is real.”
“Rebecca said not to trust her.”
“Rebecca stopped trusting everyone.”
“Where is my mother?”
Agnes lifted her trembling hand toward the floor.
“The first bell.”
Daniel searched the monitor room.
Beneath the main control desk, he found a brass bell attached to the wall.
It had no clapper.
It could never ring.
The place where the first bell never rings.
He twisted the bell.
A hidden door opened.
Stone steps led below the coastal house.
Daniel, Nathan, and two officers descended.
The underground archive was larger than the one beneath the lake property.
Thousands of files filled the shelves.
Each cabinet was marked with a number.
1 through 201.
Daniel opened Cabinet 200.
Inside were records documenting Lily’s entire life.
Photographs from the hospital.
School reports.
Medical files.
Audio recordings.
Every moment Arthur’s network had used to study her.
At the center was the numbered punishment notebook.
Not the original Lily had burned.
A copy.
Every black mark had been reproduced.
Beside each number was an address, a date, or a person’s name.
The punishments had never been random.
Each number corresponded to a Bellweather operation.
One represented a doctor.
Fifty represented a judge.
One hundred represented a stolen trust.
One hundred ninety-nine represented St. Agnes Academy.
Two hundred represented the Whitmore mansion.
Lily’s suffering had been used as a code.
Nathan opened Cabinet 201.
It was empty except for a small screen.
The screen activated automatically.
Mara appeared live from the Whitmore library.
Lily sat beside her.
Elena stood near the fireplace.
Daniel reached for his phone.
No signal underground.
A woman entered the library.
She looked exactly like Elena.
The real Elena turned toward her double.
Both women stood face-to-face.
Mara moved closer to Lily.
The scarred woman smiled.
“Hello, Isabel,” Elena said.
The woman touched the scar above her eyebrow.
“That was one of my names.”
“You’re my sister.”
“I was your sister before your mother gave me to Rebecca.”
Lily looked toward the camera hidden in the room.
Daniel knew she had recognized it.
She began moving her fingers subtly.
A code they had practiced after the first break-in.
ONE WOMAN.
ONE WEAPON.
NORTH DOOR.
Daniel shouted at the screen even though she could not hear him.
The scarred woman placed a blue cup on the library table.
“I came to finish what Arthur interrupted.”
Elena moved between her and the girls.
“You’re not taking them.”
“I don’t need to take Lily.”
The woman looked at Mara.
“Subject 201 has already opened the final door.”
Inside the underground archive, a metal lock released.
The empty Cabinet 201 moved away from the wall.
A corridor appeared behind it.
Cold air flowed through the opening.
At the far end stood Clara.
Her hands were raised.
A woman held a gun against her back.
The woman had Sophie’s face.
“Daniel,” Clara called. “Don’t come closer.”
The woman behind her smiled.
“Your mother has been waiting for you.”
Daniel stepped into the corridor.
Nathan followed.
The door closed behind them.
On the library monitor, Lily reached beneath her stuffed rabbit and removed the brass key marked 200.
Mara held the key marked 201.
The scarred woman watched them.
“You have no idea what those keys open.”
Lily stood.
Her fear was visible.
So was her determination.
“You’re wrong.”
She placed her key into a hidden slot beneath the fireplace.
Mara inserted the second key beside it.
The fireplace began moving away from the wall.
Elena stared at the darkness behind it.
A staircase descended beneath the mansion.
A woman slowly climbed the steps.
Her gray hair framed a face Daniel had seen only in photographs and recordings.
Rebecca Whitmore entered the library.
Lily looked at her grandmother.
“You knew what they were doing to me.”
Rebecca’s expression filled with pain.
“Yes.”
“And you watched?”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
Lily tightened her grip around the rabbit.
“That’s what adults say when they want children to forgive the choices they made.”
Rebecca looked toward the hidden camera.
Directly toward Daniel.
“Your father is almost here.”
Daniel stopped inside the underground corridor.
He could hear his mother’s voice through speakers in the walls.
Rebecca continued.
“But he must not reach the final room.”
The woman with Sophie’s face forced Clara forward.
At the end of the corridor was a black door.
The number 202 had been carved into it.
Nathan stared at the number.
“There were only supposed to be two hundred and one subjects.”
Clara looked at Daniel.
“They aren’t subjects.”
Daniel remembered Celia’s warning.
The numbers identified doors.
Behind the black door, someone began knocking.
Three times.
A pause.
Three more.
Then a young boy’s voice called through the metal.
“Daniel?”
Daniel moved closer.
The voice continued.
“My name is Samuel Whitmore.”
Daniel froze.
Samuel had been the name his parents planned to give the son they lost before Daniel was born.
The boy behind the door began to cry.
“Rebecca said you were my brother.”
In the library, Lily heard the same voice through the mansion speakers.
She looked toward Rebecca.
“Who is Samuel?”
Rebecca did not answer.
The scarred woman locked the north door.
Mara backed toward the staircase.
Elena reached for the alarm.
Every light in the mansion turned red.
Rebecca faced Lily.
“The first two hundred lessons were meant to expose Arthur.”
“What is the next lesson?”
Rebecca looked toward the open passage beneath the fireplace.
“Learning why your family was chosen.”
The black door beneath the coastal house unlocked.
Daniel placed his hand against it.
Clara shouted.
“Don’t open it!”
From the other side, the boy whispered one final sentence.
“Daniel, Mom told me you were dead.”
May you like
The door began opening on its own.
And every bell inside the Whitmore mansion started ringing.
