Six stomps. The mirror creaks as it opens, letting him into my closet and bathroom beyond.
“Rich people are weird as fuck,”he mumbles. The sound of his grumbling fades out as he checks out my bathroom.
Ben rounds on me. “We’ll go to the cottage, but we can’t move until he’s left the room. There’s a chance he’ll hear us on the stairs.”
“Okay,” is all I manage to say before the boot thumps are back.
“No, she’s not taking a piss either. I’ll have to check the other rooms, but I don’t want to alert their little spy kid. Yeah, well, he’s sleeping here tonight. I watched them both on the cameras. Do you think there’s a chance she’s with him?”He laughs darkly at the reply.“Yeah, I guess fucking two men would be enough for anyone.”Another laugh.“I can’t exactly walk into Dax’s room. What’ll my excuse be? I just wanted to sniff the boss’s bedsheets? Fuck that.”A long silence.“Well, why the hell didn’t you tell me that before? Hang on, I need to hurry this up. I’ve already been in here too long. Nah, worst-case scenario, I’ll alert them that she’s missing. It’ll give me a good excuse to tear through the other rooms. Okay…Hang on.”
He stomps away. The mirror squeaks again.
“They know about the cupboard door?” Ben mumbles to himself and then realises what that means for us. “He’ll be checking Dax’s room. We go now!”
Ben stands up and reaches for my hand in the dark. He pulls me to the edge of the stairs and slowly steps down, introducing me to the first step. From there, we rush as silently as possible, down,and around, and down and around, in between the walls. There are places where we duck and others where we have to walk sideways to navigate the narrowest of the paths down. When we finally hit the bottom, four floors below, we’re in the concrete tunnel under the main building. Ben releases my hand and taps on the wall before flicking a switch. The tunnel lights up with a dull blue-green glow from old, caged emergency lights that are spaced every few feet along the wall. From here I can see a wall at the end, though I know the tunnel zigzags along the way as it leads us to the maze.
“Let’s move fast. We’ll turn the lights out at the other end to make it slower for anyone to follow.”
“Are we safe in the cottage? Is there another way out of there?”
“Yes, to both questions. The maze is as good a hiding place as any, but there is a second exit from our side. Plus, nobody on the current staff roster knows about the cottage. Though Sylvie might. Not that she’s ever gone down there, so who knows?”
“Are we both thinking this is an inside job, then? I mean, he’s obviously on staff.”
“Yeah, and whoever was on the phone knew about the mirror and the cupboard doors. The mirror would likely be known to most people. That’s not a secret, but the cupboard is only known to the Trevainne family, Dax and Tom, Aiden, me, and Frank. None of the UACT crew knows of it.
“So that’s it? Our suspect pool? It’s one of the people Dax trusts the most?”
“It looks like it, unless I’m forgetting someone.”
“There’s me too,” I add.
Ben rolls his eyes. “Are you telling me you sent that man after yourself?
“No, but you only just showed me those paths, and suddenly someone else knows about them? What if they have me tracked or are listening through my phone or…”
Ben looks at my hands. “Is your phone off?”
My phone is white-knuckle gripped but switched off. “Yeah.”
“Give it to me.”
“What?”
“We’re going to test your theory. Give me your phone.” I hand it over reluctantly.
“Passcode?”
“I don’t have one.”
Ben raises a solo brow. “We’ll discuss that later. Wait here for me.” Ben runs back along the tunnel in the dark. I see him light up when my phone boots up, flaring the ceiling in a streak of blue light and a distant burst of the brand’s jingle. Within a few minutes, he’s back. Without the phone.
“What did you do?”
“Silenced it and left it at the other end. If you’re being tracked, they’ll make their way to its location.”
“Do you think they’ll find the tunnel?”
“No. That spot is roughly under the grand staircase in the main foyer. So, we’ll see him looking around for where you might be hiding. In the meantime, we need to alert Cas. Here—” Ben hands me his phone while he opens the cottage door. I press the button. The phone lights up with a passcode screen. He doesn’t even look at me as he narrates. “6794312.”
