Chapter 9 - The Safe’s Secret
The red digital numbers on the steel keypad glared back at Julian with mocking indifference: ACCESS DENIED. ENTER MASTER PIN.
He slammed his palm against the metal casing, a feral growl escaping his throat. The air inside the walk-in closet felt suffocatingly thin, and the horrifying thought of his infant son trapped in total darkness inside the airtight panic room behind the wall sent a wave of absolute panic crashing over him. He tried his wedding anniversary again, punching the numbers with brutal force, but the keypad simply beeped twice and flashed a solid, unforgiving crimson light.
“The code!” Julian shouted over his shoulder, spinning around to face Clara and the young woman who had followed him into the closet. “Eleanor said the anniversary was the combo, but it’s locked! What else could it be? Think!”
Clara stepped forward, her eyes scanning the shelves of designer handbags and luxury shoe boxes lining the walls. “Not our wedding anniversary,” Clara said quickly, her brow furrowing as she recalled fragments of conversations she had overhead while cleaning the master suite over the past year. “Mrs. Vance never celebrated her wedding date. She always talked about the day she ‘secured the estate.’ The day she legally incorporated her mother’s trust fund into her own name!”
Julian didn't waste time questioning how Clara knew this. He slapped his fingers against the keypad, punching in the date of the corporate merger detailed in the papers they had seen on the desk downstairs.
Beep. Beep. Click.
The heavy steel door of the wall safe swung outward with a sharp, pneumatic hiss, revealing the hidden interior recess behind the drywall. But there was no money inside, no expensive jewelry, and no hidden baby. Instead, the small cavity contained a tangled web of wires connected to a digital recording deck, alongside a thick stack of medical files stamped with the logo of an offshore fertility clinic in the Cayman Islands. And taped directly to the front of the deck was a small, glowing flash drive with a handwritten label reading: FINAL ACT.
Julian stared at the deck in utter confusion. The panic room wasn't behind this safe; it was a decoy.
“Julian!” Clara screamed from the other side of the bedroom, her voice echoing frantically from the hallway. “Get out here! Right now!”
Julian dropped the files, scrambled out of the walk-in closet, and sprinted back into the main bedroom. Clara was standing by the large, floor-to-ceiling bay window that overlooked the backyard pool two stories below. The heavy velvet curtains were pulled wide open, revealing the illuminated blue water reflecting dancing shadows against the ceiling.
Floating facedown in the deep end of the pool, perfectly illuminated by the underwater halogen lights, was a small, white-wrapped bundle that looked sickeningly like a baby blanket.
May you like
Julian’s breath caught in his throat. Without a single coherent thought, he turned and threw himself toward the bedroom door, tearing down the stairs toward the pool patio with a terrifying, hollow scream trapped in his chest.
---
