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"Not quite," Flynn closed the pantry door. "Did you steal all the stuff that's gone missing, apart from Mrs. Addison's necklace?"
"I only took small stuff and I still have it. I was going to start returning it randomly around the Manor but then…”
"Then someone stole the necklace and someone else killed Calli."
She nodded. "I didn't do either of those things."
"No, you didn't but you made it all possible because you used these passageways and other people found out about them."
Her face completely blanched then. "I didn't tell anyone."
"Maybe not, but you're not as stealthy as you think. Your snide comments to people gave you away. You commented about me eating chicken, but I was alone in here and the house was full of guests. How could you know it was me? You couldn't have… Unless you were watching and the only way I wouldn’t have seen you is if you were hiding in here. Others will have put two and two together as well. And now people are dead."
As if the wind had gone out of her sails, she sagged against the shelves. "I had no idea. I would never."
"And somehow, here we are. Show me how you open and close the door here. Where are the other entrances?"
“There's one in the basement in the unfinished section and there's one in the main floor billiard room next to the storage room."
She turned toward the shelves and lifted her arm to move stuff out of the way. Her scent wafted over to Flynn and recognition set in. "You fucking hit me on the head in the basement."
Mrs. Carruthers looked at him and there were tears in her eyes, along with defiance. She sniffed and the tears disappeared. "Yes, I was. I came out to make sure it was the storm and not something that I had done that caused the power to go off a second time and you were there. I couldn't escape without you seeing me."
"So you whacked me on the head. The fact that you've resented the hell out of me since I arrived had nothing to do with it, right?"
She kept her mouth shut. But it was too late as far as Flynn was concerned. Any sympathy he might have had for her evaporated. She could have killed him with that blow if it had more force behind it. She wasn't some misguided old lady. No, her bitterness and fear had overtaken her common sense and she'd gone for it. Now she would pay.
"Show me."
She turned back to the shelf and moved a pickle jar out of the way. Then she pressed on a small patch on the wall. It looked like a smudge mark. The back wall of the pantry swung closed. She hit it again and it swung back open.
"Is there anything I need to know about these passages? Any kind of traps or weak spots?"
She shook her head once.
"If I find out you've lied to me, it will only be worse for you."
She twined her fingers together at her waist and nodded.
"Go to your room and stay there until I say otherwise. Do not talk to anyone. Am I making myself clear?"
She gritted her teeth but gave him a single nod. He opened the door for her and she pushed by him. He watched her walk out of the kitchen, back ramrod straight, head held high. He closed the pantry door and pulled out his cell. "Karl? You've got about ten minutes before she leaves. Twenty at most. She won't dawdle." He dropped the call.
Helen Carruthers had a choice. She could stay in her room and wait like he'd told her to do at which point Archer would come up with some punishment for her. They couldn't fire her exactly, that's not how the Society worked. She betrayed the members by harassing them and stealing from them. She couldn't be allowed to just retire peacefully to the countryside because they had no guarantee that she wouldn't open her mouth. But her crimes weren't serious enough that she should suffer the ultimate fate. Chances were good, Archer would send her somewhere like Outer Mongolia and she would live out her days quietly, which was what she’d been trying to do here. So not so bad.
If, on the other hand, she ran, something Flynn believed extremely likely, then Karl would pick her up and deliver her to the jet where she would be flown to meet Archer in person. Flynn had no idea what that outcome would be, and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask. He was grateful it wasn’t his decision to make.
Flynn pulled out his gun and then a small flashlight from his jeans pocket. Then he hit the switch and turned off the lights in the pantry. He stepped through the door and started up the stairs. When he got to the third one, the door behind him swung closed.
He kept his flashlight and his gun raised. Mrs. Carruthers was another person he wouldn’t trust as far as she could throw him. Who knew what lurked up here? He moved cautiously and as quietly as possible. Reaching the top of the staircase a dim passageway stretched out before him.
The walls were exposed studs and old school lath and plaster. The floor was made of wide, rough planks. The passageway was just slightly wider than the width of Flynn's shoulders. Dim single bulbs dangled from the ceiling at long intervals, doing little to light the way.
The sound of snoring reached Flynn as he moved cautiously along the passageway. He was inside the wall of the house in the older section that contained all the bedrooms. He admired the ingenuity of how they built the passageways. Essentially, the hidden corridor ran the length of the building with bedrooms on each side. It was the wall everyone’s headboard was on. That meant whoever was in here could listen to anyone at any time.
More snoring and then voices. He looked around and spied holes in the walls. Small but enough to see through. He glanced through one hole to see the two women he and Shah had passed on the stairs playing cards.
As he made his way down the passageway, two things became obvious to him. One, these passageways were used regularly by more than just Mrs. Carruthers because the footsteps in the dust in certain places were of different sizes. Two, they gave whoever was inside them full access to almost every room in the building. Calling up the floor plans in his head, the only rooms that these tunnels didn't access were the employee rooms in the new wing on the second and presumably the third floor.
