Page 53 of Scarred By Sin

“A warrant for what?”

“To search this house and these grounds. I want our actions covered legally, because I want to get my hands on the medication Gwenyth has been taking. I noticed that she keeps pills in a ceramic dish on her nightstand. No prescription bottle, no label, nothing to indicate what they are or who provided them. If those pills are contributing to her symptoms, or masking the fact that she doesn’t have any, I need to know what they are.”

Sylvie considered that for a moment.

“We could ask Gwenyth voluntarily. She might hand them over if we explain what we’re looking for.”

Before Brook could respond, her gaze landed on a section of hardwood floor near the base of the shelving on the middle wall behind the desk.

A slight mark on the surface, barely visible, the kind of wear pattern that would go unnoticed in normal light. She wouldn’t have caught the smudge at all had she not been standing at the precise angle where the dim golden glow from the wall sconce failed to reflect evenly off the floor. The light pooled and shimmered across every other section of hardwood in the room, but here, along a narrow arc near the bottom of the bookcase, the finish was worn just enough to dull the reflection.

Something had been dragged across that section of the floor.

Repeatedly.

Over a long period of time.

“Sylvie.”

“What is it?”

“I think I found something.”

Sylvie crossed the room and crouched beside her. Brook pointed to the arc, tracing its path with her finger without touching the surface. The mark swept outward from the wall in a shallow curve, roughly three feet in length, consistent with the bottom edge of a door or panel swinging open.

Brook straightened and examined the section of shelving directly above the mark. The books on this shelf were identical to the others in the room, leather-bound volumes with faded spines, arranged in a tight row with no obvious gaps. She began with the far left one, pulling each book toward her until she attempted to do the same with the fourth volume.

It didn’t come free.

Instead, the book tilted outward on a hinge, and the motion triggered a mechanical click somewhere behind the wall. The sound was small, metallic, the release of a latch that had been holding something in place. In the silence of the sealed library, it was as loud as a gunshot.

Brook placed her hands on the edge of the bookshelf and pulled, causing Sylvie to step out of the way. The entire section moved toward her, pivoting on concealed hinges, the shelves swinging outward like a door. The arc on the hardwood floor aligned perfectly with the bottom edge of the false wall as it opened.

Behind it was a room.

The air that came through was stale and heavy, thick with dust and the sharp, lingering scent of chemical compounds that had been sealed in a confined space for three decades. It rolled out through the opening in a slow exhalation, carrying with it the ghost of everything that had happened inside, the experiments, the treatments, the failures, the hope that had eventually run out. Brook held her position at the threshold, not needing to give her eyes time to adjust. The room’s electricity must have been connected to the library.

The space was roughly fifteen feet deep and ten feet wide, carved out of what should have been the interior of the wall separating the library from the kitchen on the opposite side. Cal had shared with her that Nestor had construction done to the kitchen. This was the reason why. The construction had been meticulous, the walls lined with the same plaster as the rest of the house, the ceiling height matching the library’s. Whoever had built this room had understood that the proportions needed to be invisible from both sides.

A long wooden worktable ran the length of the far wall, its surface and laboratory equipment covered in a thick layer of dust. There were different types of microscopes, still mounted on their bases. Numerous glass beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks were arranged in a row, with some even containing dried residue that had long since crystallized.

There was a centrifuge with its lid closed, along with mortar and pestle sets, precision scales, racks of test tubes, and a distillation apparatus with its glassware still connected, the rubber tubing cracked and brittle with age.

Shelving lined the left wall, holding rows of sealed jars containing dried plant specimens, their labels handwritten in precise block lettering that had yellowed but remained legible. Grow lights were mounted above a secondary table where trays of desiccated soil sat in a row, whatever had been growing in them long since dead. A small refrigeration unit occupied the corner, its cord disconnected from the wall, with a faint discoloration on the floor where moisture had once pooled beneath it, evaporating years ago.

Everything was exactly where Nestor Ellingham had left it.

The room was a time capsule, sealed and untouched since the day the false door had last been closed. Thirty years of stillness, thirty years of silence, preserved behind a bookshelf in a library that no one had thought to search because no one had known there was anything to find.

“This is…” Sylvie let her words trail off. “I’ll go grab gloves and booties.”

“Grab masks, too. There’s dust coating everything.”

Brook remained at the threshold, not entering, not touching anything. Her gaze moved systematically across the room until it reached the far-right corner, where a narrow cot had been pushed against the wall. A single pillow sat at the head, flattened and discolored with age, and several folded blankets were stacked at the foot. The bedding was clean, or had been at the time it was last used. No stains, no signs of struggle, no restraints attached to the frame.

Brook searched the immediate area around the cot for any indication that the women had been held against their will. No chains, no ropes, no bolts drilled into the wall or floor. No scratch marks on the cot’s frame, no gouges in the plaster within arm’s reach of the bed. The cot had been placed there for someone to sleep in, and that someone had done so without resistance.

Barring that Nestor himself had used the cot to sleep on, Brook went on the assumption that he had hidden his test subjects in this room. Kept them here, out of sight, so that his daughter and the others who moved through the estate wouldn’t know about them.