“Gah, distract me—something, anything. This is beyond excruciating,” I whine, but he simply chuckles.
“You’resucha drama queen. Do you want to go back and make out in those dark tunnels? You might miss out on the big reveal.” My gaze goes from the vault to the tunnels, contemplating my choices, then a bloodcurdling scream comes from inside the vault.
Holden and I leap toward the door and pull, Kai and Declan joining us as Dad and Thomas, his gun pulled, move Emma, Harlow, Hope, Nana, and Poppy out of the way before rushing into the vault.
Agonizingly slowly, the door rolls outward. “We need to get some oil on those hinges ASAP,” Poppy says from behind us.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea to let others down here. I think we should keep this in-house,” Nana says. Thomas steps back out just as the door opens wide enough for us all to see.
“Keeping it in-house isnotgoing to be possible,” he says as the rest of us see the vault’s contents.
“Fucking hell,” Holden swears, taking the words right out of my mouth. The space is huge and goes back a long way, but directly in front of us is a pallet piled waist-high with what I’m guessing is cocaine or heroin. Lining the walls are crates, and Dad has one of them open, lifting up an AK47, a cloth between his hand and the gun.
“This is full of these,” he says, putting it back down, which should be enough of a mindfuck, but the most shocking thing is the skeleton that’s leaning against the pallet. Its clothes are ragged and dusty, and he looks like he laid down to take a nap and never got up. Or he would if it weren’t for the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.
Jaxon has his arms wrapped around Jacinta, who’s crying into his shirt. Harlow and Hope are holding each other’s hands, both pale and a little shaky. Emma has a hand over her mouth and tears rolling down her cheeks, Nana’s arm wrapped around her, comforting her. The rest of my family just looks resigned. There’s no way we can keep this a secret now. A murder has taken place, even if it’s a mystery that’s over twenty years old.
“Does anyone want to make a bet that that’s the count?” Declan’s words echo through the silent vault.
“No way am I going to take that bet,” Kai says, about to poke at something, but Thomas slaps his hand away.
“Stop it. They’ll want to fingerprint everything. The thing I want to know is, there’s only one body, but two went missing. That’s either the count or his son, but no matter which it is, where’s the other one?”
Again, the room is silent as we consider what he said.
“Alright, let’s all step out and head back upstairs. I’ll call Jake and see if we can do this a little more discreetly than just calling local law enforcement. Let’s keep it out of the media as long as possible.”
“Wait!” Nana shouts. “What about the rest? Everything will be sealed. Do we want to go through the contents to see if there’s anything we want to keep?”
“Mom!” Dad exclaims in surprise, and the rest of us range from looking amused (yes, that’s me), to surprised, to downright shocked (only Dad).
She shrugs. “What? I don't care if they take the drugs and the guns, but I’d like to see what else is down here.”
My family exchanges glances. I can see in their eyes that they're all kinds of curious as well, but no one wants to admit it first. “I say we have a look and take some photos on our phones, just to make sure that nothing mysteriously goesmissingduring the investigation.”
Nana’s eyes light up, and she gives me a thumbs up, which causes Thomas to sigh and run his hands through his hair with frustration. “Fine, for record-keeping purposes only. Don’t touch anything if you can avoid it, and if you have to, use a cloth to pick it up with. Let’s not leave our fingerprints everywhere; that’ll make us look like suspects.”
“Oh,” Emma cries and hurries to a shelf at the entrance of the vault. She pulls out a box of gloves and starts handing them out. “Dad told me the count used to make everyone wear them before anyone could enter the vault.”
We all take a pair and pull them on. “I thought you said he didn’t allow anyone to come down here?” Harlow asks as she grabs pairs for both her and Hope.
“He didn't let them come down in the elevator. The only people who knew that was there was the count, his son, and my father. Others came through the access tunnel. You might notice the tunnels are big enough for a golf cart. They used one with a trailer attached to bring big things in and out. That’s how these crates and the pallet would have gotten here.”
“Did you know the drugs would be here?” Poppy asks her, though he’s just curious rather than accusatory.
“No, Dad hadn't been down to the vault for a few weeks prior to the count’s disappearance, and something as undeniably illegal as that, well, he wouldn’t want to put me at risk. Though that doesn’t get rid of the possibility that the count snuck these things in without my dad noticing. In fact, he was visiting me in San Francisco when the count went missing. He always blamed himself; he thought maybe he could have prevented it. Dad was always of the thought that the count would never just run away, but the drugs and guns might add a layer of complication to the mystery of his disappearance.” Her sigh has an obvious hint of melancholy that has Dad putting his arm around her.
“Looks like he was right, but had he been here, we could have been looking at two bodies, not one. Come on, let’s go upstairs. We’ll go over to your cottage and have a cup of tea. The others can handle this, and when the authorities arrive, we can come back.” He looks to Thomas for his okay, receiving a tip of his head in answer.
“Okay. When you need to leave, the call button will activate the elevator. I don’t know if you noticed, but there’s a security feed on the wall over there.” We all swing around as she points it out. “It will show you if anyone is around or not so that you can activate the painting to open. Not that anyone should be, but just in case.”
“Do you think we could find out where the tunnels lead to and bring the police in that way? I don't like the idea of everyone knowing about the painting. If we use the tunnels, they don’t have to know there’s an access point through the main house.” Jacinta is chewing on her nail much like I did earlier. We’re all going to need damn manicures at this rate.
Thomas nods. “That’s actually a smart idea. Let’s find the map and bring them in a different way. We can always collapse that tunnel once they’ve left, so no one can get back in.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” Nana holds up her gloved fingers like they’re jazz hands. “Shall we team up, so we’re all not tripping over each other?”
“That map is the priority.” Thomas goes to say more, but I stop him, hurrying forward.
