Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Sub-Basement
The third-floor guest suite is larger than my entire two-bedroom apartment in Humboldt Park.
Mrs. Carter gently settles me onto a cream velvet sofa and places an ice pack over my throbbing joint.
"Keep your mouth shut, child," the older woman whispers, her lined face pale with genuine dread.
"You don't know what kind of viper that Bellini girl truly is."
"Mrs. Carter, she locked the inner vault," I breathe, tears finally spilling over my burning cheeks.
The housekeeper freezes, her hand pausing over the linen wrap.
"What did you say?"
"There's an older woman inside," I sob quietly, clutching her wrinkled wrist.
"She was delivering the specialty calla lilies around four this afternoon."
"Miss Bellini went down to the basement alone to inspect the order."
"I was bringing down the empty silver trays when I heard screaming from the cold room."
"When I ran in, Miss Bellini was screaming at the florist, calling her a parasite and a blackmailer."
"The older woman had a photograph in her hand and was begging Miss Bellini to confess."
"Then Miss Bellini slammed the heavy steel inner hatch and locked the exterior deadbolt."
"When I tried to reach for the latch to let her out, Miss Bellini pushed me backward down the concrete steps."
Mrs. Carter covers her mouth with an apron corner, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror.
"My foot twisted beneath the iron railing, and that's when it cracked," I whisper.
"Miss Bellini stood over me and told me that if I made a single sound, she would tell Luca I was stealing silver."
"She said Luca would have his men dispose of my body before the morning garbage pickup."
Before Mrs. Carter can reply, the bedroom door clicks open.
Dr. Harris, the Moretti family physician, enters carrying a black leather medical bag.
Two armed guards in dark charcoal suits remain stationed right outside in the dimly lit corridor.
Downstairs, through the soundproofed subfloors, the faint muffled sound of string music continues.
Meanwhile, down on the ground floor, Luca Moretti has just excused himself from the head of the table.
He leaves the guests sipping sixty-year-old cognac under the sparkling chandeliers.
Vanessa is busy showing off her platinum ring to the wife of a state senator.
Luca walks with quiet, measured strides through the massive industrial kitchen.
The cooks and prep staff stop their clattering knives the moment his shadow crosses the threshold.
He steps into the long, unlit corridor that leads down toward the foundation of the old estate.
At the bottom of the concrete stairs, his chief of security, Daniel, is waiting beside an iron security grate.
"Did you pull the security feed from four o'clock?" Luca asks, his voice cold as a winter tomb.
"The camera in the basement corridor was wiped, boss," Daniel replies grimly.
"The hard drive had a manual override keyed in from the master terminal in the library."
"Who has that terminal code?"
"Only you, sir... and Miss Bellini since last Thursday."
Luca’s expression remains terrifyingly calm, but the vein along his temple pulses with lethal rhythm.
"Who signed for the floral delivery truck?"
"A small local shop out of Oak Park called St. Jude’s Florals," Daniel answers, reading from an iPad.
"The driver was an elderly woman named Martha Vance."
"Her truck is still parked by the south service gate with the hazard lights blinking."
Luca stops in front of the heavy steel door marked 'FLOWER COOLER - OUT OF SERVICE'.
A piece of masking tape seals the seam between the door frame and the steel slab.
Across the tape, handwritten in red marker, are the words: PEST CONTROL TREATMENT - DO NOT ENTER.
Luca steps forward and rips the tape away with a single violent jerk.
He places his hand on the heavy brass handle and pulls hard.
The latch is secured by an aftermarket heavy-duty padlocked chain wrapped around the exterior latch.
"Daniel," Luca says softly. "Bolt cutters."
Daniel pulls a heavy steel tool from his tactical bag and positions the blades against the hardened links.
With a sharp, echoing snap, the severed metal clatters against the concrete floor.
Luca kicks the heavy insulated door wide open.
A blast of stale, frigid air rushes out into the hallway, carrying the pungent scent of bruised roses.
The sub-cooler is pitch black except for a tiny blinking red LED near the emergency phone box.
Luca reaches to the wall and flips the industrial light switch.
Flickering fluorescent tubes hum to life overhead, casting a harsh, sickly glare over the space.
Dozens of plastic buckets filled with wilting white roses line the damp metal shelves.
At the far end of the long cooler sits a second, reinforced vault door used for cold meat storage in the 1920s.
From behind that thick, insulated steel wall comes a frantic, dying rhythm.
May you like
*Thump. Thump. Thump.*
A desperate human hand is weakly pounding against the frozen steel from the inside.
