Chapter 9 - UNDER THE VINEYARD
The floor panel beside the wine cabinet dropped open.
Rebecca vanished into darkness.
Claire lunged toward the opening, but Eleanor fired into the ceiling. Plaster rained down.
“Stay where you are.”
Charles dragged Maya’s daughter toward a narrow staircase beneath the house. The family had built tunnels during Prohibition and later converted them into private storage vaults.
Police were listening through the hidden microphones, but the stone walls weakened the signal.
Claire followed, counting every turn.
At the bottom, Rebecca lay beside a rusted rail track. She had fallen twelve feet but was conscious.
Beyond her stood rows of locked cages filled with boxes.
Documents. Jewelry. Passports. Paintings.
Property taken from every person the Caldwells had ruined.
Maya stared at a shelf labeled with women’s names.
Her own name was there.
Charles saw her looking. “Insurance,” he said. “Every family needs insurance.”
Claire stepped closer to him. “You kidnapped a child for a file you can never erase.”
“I can erase witnesses.”
A voice came from behind the cages.
“No, Dad. You can’t.”
Adrian emerged holding a shotgun.
For one stunned moment, Claire believed he had come to help them.
Then he pointed the weapon at Charles.
“You were going to blame all of this on me,” Adrian said. “The assault. The loan. Rebecca. You already prepared the confession.”
Charles did not deny it.
Eleanor raised her revolver toward her son.
Adrian swung the shotgun toward her.
Maya pulled her daughter behind a stone column.
Claire dropped beside Rebecca.
May you like
Three members of the Caldwell family stood in a triangle, each willing to kill the others to survive.
Then a gun fired.
