Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WITH TOO MANY DOORS
Nell moved before Odette could stand.
She pulled the door open.
The hallway was empty.
At the far end, the service stairwell door swung shut.
Nell ran.
“Nell!” Odette called.
She reached the stairs as footsteps hit the landing below.
A gray sleeve disappeared around the corner.
Then the lights went out.
The entire house fell silent.
No furnace.
No kitchen vents.
Only the distant alarm chirping on backup power.
Nell stopped.
She knew better than to chase someone into darkness.
She turned back.
A hand clamped over her mouth.
She drove her heel down hard.
The man swore.
Bastian.
He caught her wrist and twisted it behind her.
“Should’ve taken the ride.”
Nell slammed backward into the wall.
A framed painting crashed down.
Bastian’s grip loosened.
She dragged her fingers across the wall until she found the small metal handle beneath the stair rail.
The old service bell.
She pulled.
Nothing.
Of course.
Electric.
Bastian laughed once.
Nell yanked the entire handle free and struck his face with it.
He released her.
She ran toward the kitchen, overturning a narrow table behind her.
“Help!”
The emergency lights flickered on.
Tomas appeared at the kitchen entrance.
Bastian changed direction.
A door slammed.
By the time two guards reached the courtyard, he had cleared the side gate.
Nell stood against the refrigerator, shaking so badly her teeth clicked.
Carmine came through the kitchen.
“What happened?”
She tried to answer.
Nothing came.
He stopped two steps away.
“May I come closer?”
She nodded once.
He took off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders.
It smelled faintly of cedar.
An old memory opened without permission.
That same smell beneath her cheek while he carried her upstairs.
Nell pushed the memory away.
“He was inside,” she said. “Someone let him in.”
Tomas checked the access records on his phone.
The power interruption had begun in the maintenance panel.
An exterior door had been opened minutes earlier with an administrative code.
Vittorio’s code.
Carmine looked at Tomas.
“Find my brother.”
“He left the property twenty minutes ago.”
A guard hurried into the kitchen carrying a brown envelope.
It had been left beneath the windshield wiper of Mara’s car.
Inside was a photograph taken that morning.
Nell at the garden apartment.
Carmine behind her.
May you like
On the back, someone had written:
ASK YOUR FATHER WHAT HAPPENED TO DANIEL PRICE.
