Chapter 6 - The Brick Oven on West Fourth Street and the Secret Compartment That Defied Sixteen Years of Dust
The abandoned storefront on West Fourth Street looked like a tomb for old memories.
The glass windows were coated in a thick layer of grime and newsprint pasted over from the inside, shielding the cavernous, empty interior from the grey South Boston drizzle.
A padlock as big as a fist secured the heavy wooden front door, but it didn't stand a chance against Sam’s pneumatic bolt cutters.
Clack.
The iron shackle snapped with a sound that echoed down the quiet morning street.
"Clear," Sam muttered, pushing the door open and stepping into the dark, smelling of stale plaster, old brick, and forgotten decades.
Nora stepped over the threshold behind Vincent, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
The bakery had been gutted years ago; the display cases were gone, the counters stripped down to raw plywood, and the floor was littered with plaster dust and peeling strips of vintage wallpaper.
Yet, standing against the back wall, massive and immovable, was the original hearth-style brick oven Aunt Millie had installed back in the nineteen-eighties—a hulking monolith of red clay and iron rivets.
"That’s it," Nora whispered, walking slowly across the debris-strewn floor, her hand trailing along the cold surface of the counter frame. "My grandfather helped Aunt Millie build that oven with his own hands. My mother used to bring me here when I was three years old to sit on the flour bins while they kneaded dough."
Vincent walked up beside her, his tall frame casting a long shadow across the soot-stained bricks of the hearth.
"The diary said twelve turns of the dial," Vincent reminded her, his eyes scanning the heavy iron damper control wheel set into the side of the masonry.
Nora stepped closer, her fingers reaching out to touch the heavy, grease-coated iron dial.
It was stiff, frozen in place by sixteen years of rust, soot, and neglect.
"Help me," she said, looking up at him.
Vincent didn't hesitate. He stepped behind her, placing his large, warm hands over hers on the iron wheel. His chest pressed against her back, wrapping her in a solid, unyielding embrace that made her breath catch in her throat.
"Together," he murmured, his voice rumbling deep in his chest against her ear.
On three, they pulled.
The old iron groaned, protesting with a harsh, metallic shriek that sounded like tearing metal.
Screeeeech.
"Keep going," Vincent encouraged, his muscles bunching beneath his ruined suit jacket as he applied the full, terrifying leverage of his upper body strength.
Click.
Then another click.
One. Two. Three. Four... all the way to twelve.
With a hollow, pneumatic hiss of escaping air that had been sealed inside the masonry for a decade and a half, a section of the red brick wall beside the hearth popped outward on concealed steel hinges.
Nora gasped, stepping back into Vincent’s arms as a small, velvet-lined compartment revealed itself in the dark recess of the wall.
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Inside sat a single, heavy brass key attached to a faded red ribbon, gleaming under the weak morning light as if it had been polished yesterday.
"There," Vincent whispered, his breath warm against the nape of her neck. "We found it."
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