Chapter 52 - THE CRAWLSPACE BENEATH THE CRAG
"Your sister," Evan breathed, looking at Grace.
Grace’s eyes were wide, staring at the dead monitor. The pieces of the terrifying, multi-decade puzzle were finally slamming together with brutal clarity. Vanessa hadn't been a scheming social climber trying to push Sophie out of the picture. She had been an undercover operative in her own family’s nightmare, fighting to protect a niece she could never openly claim.
"She gave me the memory card," Grace whispered, her voice cracking with grief. "When she slapped me... she slipped the card into my apron pocket. She knew I would run. She knew I would take Sophie."
"And she died in that nursery fire to give us a head start," Evan said, his heart aching with the weight of an apology he would never be able to deliver. He looked down at Sophie, whose small hands were gripping Grace’s coat now.
"We don't let her sacrifice be for nothing," Evan said firmly. "Grace, the detonator. Set it."
Grace wiped the blood and dust from her forehead, her expression hardening from shock into cold, unyielding resolve. She knelt back down at the exposed junction box, twisted the two red copper leads together, and inserted the bare wire into the manual countdown terminal. A high-pitched, steady tone began to whine from the master relay.
*T-MINUS 120 SECONDS.*
"The ladder," Grace said, pointing down the open manhole. "It drops twenty feet to an iron catwalk above the drainage flume. From there, we follow the water downhill toward the old timber access road."
Evan took Sophie first. "Wrap your arms around my neck, baby. Don't let go, no matter what happens. Keep your eyes closed."
Sophie buried her face in Evan's collar, her arms locking around his throat with surprising strength. Evan stepped onto the rusted iron rungs, his heavy work boots finding purchase on the slick, slimy metal. Step by step, he descended into the dark vertical shaft, the roar of the subterranean torrent growing louder with every foot.
Grace followed immediately, pulling the heavy manhole cover back over the opening as far as she could to muffle the countdown tone.
Above them, through the heavy rock, the violent rumble of Eleanor’s breaching charges exploded through the ceiling of the operations room. Shouts in crisp, military cadences echoed down through the cracked rim of the manhole cover.
"They're in the room!" Grace hissed from above him on the ladder.
"Keep moving!" Evan shouted back over the deafening roar of water.
Ten feet below, the ladder terminated at an ancient, rusted steel grating suspended directly over a raging torrent of mountain runoff. The water was black, foaming white against jagged limestone boulders, rushing through a natural cavern that had been widened by Thomas Miller’s excavation equipment half a century ago.
Evan dropped onto the grating. The metal platform swayed violently under his weight, chains groaning against the cavern ceiling. He reached up, catching Grace by the waist as she dropped down the final rungs.
"Where now?" Evan yelled.
May you like
Grace pointed down the narrow catwalk that followed the curve of the subterranean river into the black maw of the mountain. "Three hundred yards to the culvert! Run!"
***
