Chapter 3 - The Secret Sanctuary
The mansion possessed secrets that even Victoria Costello hadn't fully uncovered. During her first week, Arthur had shown Fiona a "magic door" behind the heavy floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the library—a narrow passage built during Prohibition to allow the original owners to move liquor, or escape federal raids.
To get to the library, Fiona had to cross the open balcony overlooking the grand foyer.
She carried Arthur close, her arms aching from his weight as the numbness began to creep past her wrist and into her forearm. Her balance was slightly off; the floor felt like it was tilting beneath her feet, a symptom she recognized all too well. Vertigo. The toxin was attacking her central nervous system.
She reached the balcony railing and peered down into the cavernous foyer.
The crystal chandelier overhead swayed slightly in the drafts created by the storm. Below, two men in long black coats stood near the double mahogany entrance doors. They weren't checking the perimeter for intruders; they were watching the entrances to ensure no one left.
"Victoria wants the kid found before Dominic's plane lands at O'Hare," one of the men said, his voice echoing faintly up the marble walls. "If the kid is still breathing when the boss gets back, we're all dead men."
"The doctor said the dose in the syringe he brought would finish it tonight," the second man replied, lighting a cigarette. "Why the hell did Reed let the nurse get in the way?"
"Because Reed's an idiot who thinks his medical degree makes him smart. The girl’s tough. She worked trauma in the city. She’s used to blood."
Fiona drew back into the shadows. Dominic is coming back tonight. The realization brought a sudden, fierce spark of hope, quickly extinguished by the timeline. If Dominic was flying into O'Hare during a thunderstorm this severe, his plane would be delayed, or he would be forced to drive through flooded highways. They had hours to survive, and she only had minutes before the numbness in her legs made walking impossible.
She crept along the balcony, keeping low behind the stone balustrade until she reached the heavy oak doors of the library. She slipped inside, locking the door behind her with a quiet click.
The library smelled of old paper, leather, and wood smoke from the dying embers in the massive fireplace. Fiona carried Arthur to the far corner, behind the towering section on military history. She found the brass latch hidden behind a three-volume set of encyclopedias. With a groan of old iron, a section of the wall swung inward, revealing a dark, narrow staircase leading downward.
She pulled the door shut behind them, plunging them into absolute darkness.
Fiona didn't dare turn on her penlight until they had descended twenty steps into the cold, damp air of the mansion's foundations. The passage was narrow, the walls rough-hewn limestone. At the bottom, the tunnel opened into a small, windowless room containing an old iron desk, a disconnected rotary telephone, and several wooden crates rotting from the moisture.
She laid Arthur down on a relatively clean pile of old wool blankets in the corner.
"Arthur? Can you hear me?"
The boy’s eyes rolled toward her, but his eyelids were heavy. "Fiona... I'm so cold."
His temperature was spiking. Fiona pulled off her scrub top, leaving herself in a thin undershirt, and wrapped the warm fabric around his shoulders. She pulled a vial of atropine from her kit. She couldn't wait any longer. His respiratory rate was dropping; his breaths were becoming shallow and ragged.
"This will help you breathe, baby. Stay still."
She drove the needle into his thigh, depressing the plunger. Arthur gasped as the drug hit his system, his heart rate spiking as the atropine fought the paralyzing effects of the neurotoxin. Within sixty seconds, his breathing stabilized, the terrifying rattling in his chest slowing down.
Fiona slumped against the iron desk, her own breath coming in ragged gasps. Her left arm was completely useless now, hanging limp at her side. The vision in her left eye was blurring, turning the room into a smear of gray shadows.
She looked at the old rotary phone on the desk. The wires were cut, dangling uselessly toward the floor. She was cut off.
Then she saw it—a modern, black digital radio unit sitting on top of one of the wooden crates, its green battery light blinking steadily in the dark. It belonged to one of Dominic’s loyal perimeter guards, likely left behind during a shift rotation.
Fiona reached for it with her good hand, her fingers trembling with a neurological tremor that made even simple movements a triumph of will. She turned the dial, searching for the frequency she had heard the guards use during her three weeks in the house.
A voice cracked through the static. "...perimeter secure. No sign of the asset or the nurse."
It was Victoria's men. They were using the house security channels.
Fiona changed the frequency, spinning the dial blindly until she hit a low-band, encrypted channel that emitted a rhythmic, digital hum. This was Dominic's private line—the one his personal bodyguards used when they traveled with him.
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She pressed the talk button, her voice dropping into the low, steady register she used when calling a code blue in the ER.
"Dominic," she said into the static. "If you can hear this, your son is dying. They poisoned the pillow. Victoria and Reed. We are in the foundations. Hurry."
