Chapter 5 - The Secret Compartment
The flashlight beam cut through the dark cracks of the louvered closet door, casting bright lines across my face. I held my breath, pressing my back tightly against the stacks of spare wool blankets to keep from making a sound.
"Clear?" the first man grunted.
"Nothing here," Harrison replied, his voice dripping with irritation. "It was probably just the old foundation settling or a stray raccoon. This place is rotting anyway. Get back inside and tear apart that desk. If the encryption keys aren't in the filing cabinet, check the floorboards beneath the bookshelf."
Footsteps retreated down the hallway, and the door to Daniel’s study clicked shut.
I waited a full minute, listening to the muffled sound of furniture being shoved across the wooden floor upstairs, before silently slipping out of the closet.
Instead of heading back down to the kitchen, I moved quietly toward the opposite end of the hallway—toward Sophie’s old nursery, which connected directly to the back of Daniel’s study through a narrow, hidden service corridor.
Daniel had built the corridor years ago when he was remodeling the cabin, calling it his "secret engineer's alley" where he could run electrical cables without tearing up the main walls. At the time, it was just a quirky DIY project. Tonight, it was my only way inside the study unseen.
I slipped into the dark nursery, felt along the wood-paneled wall behind the old rocking chair, and pressed a concealed latch disguised as a knot in the pine.
With a soft click, the panel swung inward, revealing a tight, dusty crawlspace smelling of old copper and cedar.
I squeezed through the opening, crawling on my hands and knees until I reached the back of the bookshelf inside Daniel’s study. Peering through the slats of the wooden shelves, I could see Harrison and his accomplice standing right in the middle of the room.
They had pulled out every drawer from Daniel’s mahogany desk, scattering tax forms, engineering blueprints, and old family photographs across the floor.
"Boss, I'm telling you, there's nothing here," the accomplice complained, wiping sweat from his forehead. "We checked the safe behind the painting. It was empty."
Harrison walked over to the window, staring out toward the lake where Mara's car was parked safely out of sight among the trees.
"He hid it," Harrison muttered, his voice tense. "Daniel wasn't stupid. He knew we were onto him before his 'accident' at the dock. He gave his wife a life insurance trust, but he kept the master decryption drive somewhere physical—somewhere a five-year-old child might play."
A chill ran down my spine.
Somewhere a child might play.
My mind raced back to Sophie. During our last summer here, before Daniel died, Sophie used to spend hours playing with her wooden blocks in the corner of this exact room, hiding her favorite plastic animals behind the low baseboard heating grates.
I looked down through the slats of my hiding spot. Right beneath the lower shelf of the bookcase, the brass vent cover had a slightly loose screw.
Harrison turned away from the window and walked directly toward the bookcase, kneeling down right in front of the vent.
May you like
"Check this vent," Harrison commanded.
My heart leapt into my throat. If they opened that vent before I could reach it, all of Daniel's evidence—and the truth about his death—would be destroyed forever.
