When she didn’t come up, Wes bent over to see what was happening. “You okay?”
She was running her hand up and down the side of the island. “I feel a draft.”
He stretched his hand out. “I feel it too.”
Nadine started to get to her feet, and Wes reached over to pull her up. “How do we get in here?” she asked. “There are no cabinet doors.”
Wes circled the island as Nadine watched, hands on her hips. Then she followed him, running her fingertips under the edge of the counter. She halted, and Wes looked back, then put his fingers beside hers. There was a thin bulge. “A hinge?” he asked.
They cleared off the island and went to the far end, each taking a corner. At Nadine’s nod, they lifted.
The entire marble countertop rose in the air, so suddenly and smoothly that they lost their grip. “What the hell!” yelped Nadine as it dropped. “Did you see that?”
Wes had. Under the counter was an abyss. “Lift it again,” he said.
This time, they went slower, and two rods lowered to hold the counter in place. With one hand over their heads in case the heavy slab fell, they peered over the edge.
“Wow,” said Nadine. “Wow.”
Wes wasn’t surewowwas adequate for this discovery and stayed staring into the stygian gloom as Nadine ran to fetch the flashlight. She shone it down to reveal a flight of stairs.
“We found the basement door,” she announced.
There was no discussion of next steps, because of course they were going down. After a few minutes to lock the curious and protesting Erma in the games room with the other cats, Wes felt around and found a latch that opened the side of the island, then propped the doors in place with the kitchen stools. Nadine texted Lisanne a photo of the gaping counter and a request to send help if she didn’t hear back within two hours.
I don’t know how you get into these situations, but give my regards to Dracula, replied Lisanne.
Safety covered, and after a brief fight over who would go first, Wes took Nadine’s hand, and they headed down the stairs to the long-sought basement. “Are you nervous?” he asked.
“No, why?”
“You’re using my hand like a stress ball.”
She squeezed tighter. “Expectant. Hopeful. A little freaked out.”
“All valid.” Wes’s own astonishment had settled into a spiky excitement that grew with each step. The stairs were surprisingly code-compliant, complete with handrails and anti-slip tape along the edges.
Happily, there were no coffins, corpses, or other spooky scaries.
Nadine’s hand clung to his as she swung the flashlight back and forth from their position at the base of the stairs. Wes thought the space would be as big as the attic, but it only seemed to stretch as far as the library. “Doesn’t look like there’s anything here but those boxes I saw on the video from the dumbwaiter,” she said.
“Did you phrase it like that to point out that you saw the boxes first?”
“Yes.”
He leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Nice.”
She didn’t move. “This could be it, you know. Whatever Dot wanted us to learn could be in that corner.”
Nadine was right. The entire mystery could be solved in minutes. All they had to do was walk across the concrete floor and open up those boxes. It could be anything. Dot’s journal. A handwritten confession. Photographs of John Wilson so compromising that not even the sharkiest lawyer could deny their veracity. Yet they didn’t move.
“Hey,” said Nadine. Her voice was low under the weight of the basement air. “I want to say there’s no one else I’d rather be in a creepy basement with than you.”
“Ditto.” He didn’t say more because his throat had tightened up.
“And that this has been the best three weeks of my life.” She looked into his face. “No matter what we find in those boxes.”
She kissed him, her mouth slotting into his so naturally it was like they had always belonged to each other. Then she pulled away and whacked him on the ass. “Come on.”
