Chapter 7 - The Hidden Compartment
"Clear the kitchen!" a voice barked through the small radio clipped to the lead officer’s shoulder.
Mark’s face drained of all color, the aggressive bravado instantly melting into a look of sheer, unadulterated panic. He took a sudden step toward the stairs, but the female officer blocked his path with a firm hand resting on the holster of her sidearm. "Stay right where you are, sir."
Martha clutched her chest, faking a dramatic stagger against the living room wall. "I’m going to faint... my heart condition..." she whimpered, sliding downward with calculated theatricality. But neither officer paid her any attention; their focus was locked entirely on the back hallway where the second team was tearing into the pantry walls.
Upstairs, Chloe realized the police were tearing apart the exact area where she had spent her childhood locked in a windowless storage closet. Driven by a sudden surge of desperate curiosity, she slipped away from the landing and hurried back toward her bedroom, dropping to her knees beside the heavy wardrobe. Remembering the piece of paper that had fluttered out of the mahogany desk earlier, she reached blindly beneath the dark wooden baseboards.
Her fingertips brushed against something cold and metallic. Pulling it out into the dim light, she saw it wasn't just paper—it was a thin, magnetic lockbox attached to the underside of the floorboards.
With shaking hands, she tried the brass key she had found earlier this morning. It slid into the lock with a satisfying click.
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Inside the box lay a stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills and a passport bearing a photograph of a woman who looked strikingly like Chloe—except the name on the document was entirely different.
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