Chapter 14

After giving everyone their instructions, I went to the den and started to work.

The room felt cold, the air salty and damp and hinting at old paper. I knew that the person who had been in my room had come in here. And while Deputy Bobby's explanations had been sensible and reasonable and, well, sane, I knew that whoever I had been chasing, they had come in here. And they hadn't left through the window.

Since the fireplace seemed to be a dead end, I went to work on the bookshelves. I checked each book, one by one. I had a hunch, but I wanted to be thorough (I hadn't decided yet if the latest iteration of Will Gower would be thorough or would trust his gut). It took me a couple of hours before I found it, and wouldn't you know it—it was a copy of The Nightingale Murders, Vivienne's Pulitzer-nominated true crime account of how she had helped the police catch Matrika Nightingale. It wasn't a real book—in so many ways. When I pulled on it, something clicked, and a section of the built-in bookcase swung open to reveal another secret passage.

I grabbed the flashlight that Indira had loaned me and turned it on. I thought about trying 911 again, but in the chaos surrounding the sheriff's death, nobody seemed to have time for what was, admittedly, a wild story. My calls to Deputy Bobby went straight to voicemail. With no other option, I started my phone recording and put it in my pocket. I eased the secret door open all the way. A steep staircase headed down into the dark. That made sense; when I'd been in the cellar, it had seemed small compared to the size of Hemlock House. That's because it was small, of course. Because there were other parts of the basement that were secret. Like this one.

As I started down the steps, the beam from my flashlight bounced around. I tried to steady my hand and didn't have much luck. I focused, instead, on breathing. Slow, even breaths. The darkness closed around me as the light from the den grew weaker and weaker, and ahead of me, the flashlight only picked out more steps. I tried to go quietly, but every movement seemed unbearably loud: the whisper of my soles against the treads, the rustle of my clothing. The air was even colder than it had been in the den, and I wished I'd taken Deputy Bobby's advice and put on something besides the SEGA tee and sleep shorts.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I could sense that the darkness opened up into a larger space—a room of some sort. I played the flashlight around and saw more shelves built into the walls, loaded with curios under cloches and books and—I tried to step back and smacked into a wall. An enormous taxidermy owl stared back at me, beak open in a silent screech. When I'd swallowed my heart again, I said a few words you can't put in a birthday card.

The flashlight's beam showed me a table and chairs, almost like this was some kind of subterranean parlor, and then a corridor extended off into the gloom. I could make out at least one door. The air smelled like dry, dusty stone, with a hint of something else—kerosene, maybe. And processed food, something that made me think of off-brand spaghetti rings. In the silence, I could hear my blood in my ears.

Without any better options, I started off down the corridor. I swept the flashlight back and forth. The stonework looked old, and so did the furniture in that strange little parlor, and so did the doors. All of this, I was fairly sure, had been part of the house's original design. Nathaniel Blackwood's dream for Hemlock House. Secrets within secrets. I wondered why. Maybe, for a man of his time, even a secret lair needed somewhere to drink tea. Actually, maybe that was still a good rule of thumb.

The first door that I opened revealed a small bedroom. These furnishings were all original too—dark, heavy wood, thick rugs. Not quite as elegant as the main house, but definitely a cut above your modern-day prepper's cot and military-issue blanket. A can of ravioli and red sauce sat on the nightstand next to a modern camping lantern, and a kerosene heater had been pulled close to the bed. Too close for this guy's liking, actually. The room was still warm. My heart started to beat a little faster.

I shut the door and continued down the hall. When I opened the next door, I found Vivienne.

She lay on the floor, on her side, her back to me, but I knew it was her. In a baggy sweatshirt and leggings, she looked small and frail, and it was hard to tell if she was breathing. It looked like she'd been kept prisoner down here since her apparent death. My hand felt greasy around the flashlight. I had a flashback to thirteen-year-old Dash, and for an instant, I knew with terrifying certainty that as soon as I started to speak, my voice would crack.

But somehow, I managed to say, "Vivienne? It's me, Dash. Dashiell. Jonny and Patricia's son." She didn't respond. I crossed the room to her. The stillness and the dark felt like a weight bearing down on me, and it was surprisingly difficult to raise my voice. "Vivienne? Can you hear me? Are you all right?" I reached out to touch her shoulder.

She rolled over more quickly than I expected, and a gun came up, pointed right in my face. "You stupid boy," Vivienne said. "You've ruined everything."