Chapter 29 - The Last Safe Meeting
Rachel followed the wet footprints.
They ended beside the furnace, where a section of wall had moved inward. Behind it was another passage connected to the underground pump system.
Olivia had known an entrance existed inside the house.
She had not discovered the family’s secrets recently.
She had grown up around them.
Rachel, Tessa, and two officers followed the passage until it divided beneath the garden. One route led toward the pump station. The other continued toward the abandoned school.
Floodwater moved around their boots.
The level was rising quickly.
They found Olivia near a rusted gate, struggling to turn a circular handle.
“Stop,” one officer ordered.
Olivia released it.
“If the pressure reaches this point before House Zero opens, the chamber seals for another year.”
“Why were you in my father’s car?” Rachel asked.
Olivia looked at the water.
“My mother asked him to move the source ledger. She believed Northline had discovered its location.”
“You were fourteen.”
“She wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“Were you there when he crashed?”
“Yes.”
Rachel’s voice became quieter.
“Did he die in an accident?”
“No.”
Olivia explained that another vehicle had forced them off the road. Rachel’s father helped Olivia escape through a broken rear window before the car struck the barrier.
She hid in the trees and watched two people remove a metal case from the wreck.
“One was Victor,” Olivia said.
“And the other?”
“A woman wearing Evelyn’s green ring.”
“My mother?”
“I couldn’t see her face.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“My mother said they would kill us next.”
The circular gate shuddered.
Water poured through the edges.
Tessa received confirmation that the judge had authorized entry into the school. A police team moved aboveground while Rachel’s group continued through the tunnel.
The passage ended beneath the school basement.
Olivia inserted the silver token into a mechanism marked H0. Rachel placed the brass key into a second lock.
Both turned simultaneously.
A concrete wall divided down the center.
House Zero was not a house.
It was an underground archive.
Rows of sealed cabinets stretched into darkness. Electrical systems activated as floodwater entered channels beneath the floor.
At the center stood a pressure vault.
The vault door was already open.
Someone had arrived before them.
Marcus lay unconscious beside the entrance, breathing but unresponsive.
A sealed package rested on his chest.
Rachel knelt beside him.
Written across the package were the words:
FOR RACHEL—AFTER SHE CHOOSES A SISTER.
A sound came from behind the cabinets.
The officers raised their flashlights.
A woman stepped into view.
She appeared to be in her late sixties. Silver threaded her dark hair. A green-stone ring gleamed on her hand.
Rachel had seen her face in family photographs all her life.
The woman looked at Olivia first.
May you like
Then she looked at Rachel.
“Only one of you was supposed to come,” she said.
