Chapter 286

I turned off my light and shivered in the darkness. But if a terrifying beast lives down here, it could probably see in the dark.

The whispering got louder. It sounded like words coming from human throats, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying.

I had to get out of here. But how?

In total darkness, I began to move along the room's walls. Maybe there was another door to a different passage or a way out.

“Ouch,” I yelped when I bumped my head on something.

After staying still a moment to see if the whispering thing was coming closer, I examined the object I bumped my head on with my hands.

It felt like a heavy wooden ladder. Why would there be a ladder in the corner of the room?

Unless ….

I was under the complex. A ladder must be for climbing up. Maybe it was a way out through the ceiling.

I turned my light on again and saw the sturdy ladder leaning against the wall, the top near a wooden square that resembled a trapdoor in the high ceiling.

The whispering had stopped, but I hurried up the ladder anyhow. I wanted out of this place. I wanted Victor. I wanted to go home.

Standing on the ladder with the trapdoor inches from my head, I raised a hand and pushed as hard as possible.

But the trapdoor wouldn’t budge.

Steadying myself on the ladder, I used both hands to push upward. The door was incredibly heavy, but it moved! I took a deep breath and pushed harder.

The trapdoor began to give, and a second later, it crashed against a wall on the upper floor.

Light shone through the opening, and I scrambled up the ladder until I could pull myself up. Sitting on the stone floor of an upper passageway, I waited for my heart to begin beating normally again.

Then I got to my feet and closed the trapdoor, marveling at how well it fit into the floor. With a thin stone backing over the wood, it was invisible when it was closed.

I got moving again in case the beast could climb ladders.

Hurrying down another lit passageway, I turned toward the sound of voices. This time, they weren’t whispering, and I could understand the words.

One of the voices was Victor’s. It sounded as if he was dictating a letter.

That’s when I noticed grates in the walls to my left. There was a grate every twenty feet, and if you moved a small lever next to the grate, you could hear everything being said in the room on the other side of the wall.

Victor’s voice was coming from the second grate. The lever was all the way open.

“In closing, I believe your full cooperation is essential in this matter,” Victor said. “I await your reply.”

“When do you want this sent?” a woman’s voice asked.

“Immediately,” Victor replied.

“He was dictating a letter,” I whispered. I felt a wave of jealousy. “Was the woman's voice that sexy woman I saw in his office?”

Then I realized this spy’s hallway could be how Victor’s enemies knew what he was doing.

I had to tell him. Maybe he could get me out of here, too.

“Victor,” I yelled into the grate. “Help me. I’m in a passageway on the other side of the wall, and I can’t find a way out.”

But there was no reply. There was no sound at all from the other side of the grate.

I tried again. If I could hear him so plainly, he had to be able to hear me.

But there was nothing but silence on the other side of the wall.

I was startled by a voice in one of the passages behind me and hurried toward the sound. I turned a corner and then another when I realized someone was calling my name.

“Hello,” I called back. “Who’s there?”

“Daisy,” the voice called again. “Where are you?”

“I’m here,” I yelled and hurried toward the voice. “Cassidy, is that you?”

I hurried around another corner and saw Cassidy coming my way.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “You could have gotten lost or hurt.” She put her hands on my shoulders and looked me over for any injuries.

“I saw you disappear into the bathroom and found the door to the passageways,” I told her. “I tried to catch up with you so you could tell me how to get outside, but I got more lost.”

Come with me,” she said. “I’ll take you to a passage that leads directly outside.” She gave me a strange look. “You’ve been in here since I went into the bathroom?”

“Yes,” I replied. “I turned right down a long hall, and then I think I went left …. Ooh, I don’t know where I was. There was a strange, dark place, and I heard weird whispers.”

“You were in a place with no lights?” Cassidy asked. Her eyes were narrowed, and her lips pursed.

“Yeah, I fell through a wall and found wolves with ruby eyes,” I said. “And I heard ….”

Cassidy held up a hand for me to be silent. “You mustn’t tell anyone what you saw in here. Daisy, it’s crucial that you don’t cause treasure hunters to break in and ruin things before ….”

“Before what?” I asked.

“There are important things in these passages,” Cassidy said. “They would break in and steal anything they thought they could sell for a quick buck. This place is part of our heritage. You must keep today’s adventure to yourself.”

“But Victor needs to know about the spy’s passage,” I insisted. “It must be how his enemies know what he’s doing.”

Cassidy sighed. “These days, spies have much more sophisticated ways of knowing what Victor is doing. They wouldn’t have to resort to physically spying on him.”

“But I can’t keep what happened to me today to myself,” I told her. “Victor and I tell each other everything.”

“You can’t tell him about this,” she insisted. “If you don’t believe me, ask your father before you say anything. Okay?”

“Fine, I’ll talk to Alex first. But I don’t understand how telling Victor anything about the Association could be a bad thing.”

Cassidy led me down a long tunnel. “Does this look familiar?”

I shrugged. “It all looks the same to me.”

Cassidy pointed to a short side tunnel. “Right here is the bathroom where you entered the passageways.”

I saw the first set of stone wolves.

“Do the stone wolves mean something?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “Plain wolves mean an exit. If you would have gone left instead of right when you first entered this passage, you would have ended up outside.”

I thunked myself in the forehead with the heel of my hand. “One wrong turn cost me most of the afternoon.”

“You’re lucky all it cost you was time,” Cassidy muttered. “Come on, we’re almost there.”

She walked me to another set of wolves and pressed its head, opening a door in the stone wall.

I was free!

As soon as I got outside, my phone buzzed. There were two text messages from Victor.

He wanted to know where I was and if I was okay. The messages were sent when I was lost and terrified in the bowels of the complex and being stalked by the whispering beast.

Our bond told Victor I was in trouble. Now, according to Cassidy, I had to deny anything was wrong.

Ugh. I would talk to Alex first. But if there was no good reason not to tell Victor about my adventures in the passages, I would tell him everything I experienced.

Victor was the leader of the Association. Why couldn’t he know about the passages?

As I got to my Mercedes, I texted him, saying I was fine and on my way to the mansion. At least, that was the truth.

My phone rang in my hand as soon as I climbed behind the wheel of my car. Caller ID told me it was Benson.

I answered immediately. “Hi, Benson. What’s up?”

“There is a rather distraught young lady here who insists on waiting for your return to speak to you,” he said. “I told her I’m unsure when that will be, but she refuses to leave.”

“Who is she?” I asked. Just what I needed after the afternoon I had.

“She said her name is Heather Woodward,” Benson replied. “She said you know each other from high school.”

I just spoke to Heather that morning in the restaurant. Why would she be at Alex’s, and what would she be upset about that had to do with me?

“Benson, please make her comfortable and tell her I’m on my way. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”