Page 65 of In Her Memory

“I’ll take left, you take right,” Jake said. “Stay in contact. If you see him, don’t approach alone—wait for backup.”

Jenna knew there was no time to argue. The passageway branched just beyond the entrance—left and right, both directions leading deeper into the mansion’s hidden heart. The suspect could have gone either way.

Jake charged after him, taking a left at the junction, his flashlight beam bobbing as he moved. Jenna angled to the right. The passage was narrow—barely wide enough for her to pass through—and smelled of dust and old wood. The floor beneath her feet was smooth, worn by decades of use.

She moved as quickly as caution would allow, flashlight sweeping back and forth ahead of her. The beam caught only bare wood and the occasional dust bunny—no footprints, no sign that anyone had passed this way. Had the suspect gone left after all?

The passage curved gently, then straightened again. Jenna kept her pace steady, one hand on her weapon, the other guiding the flashlight. Ahead, the corridor ended in another T-intersection—left and right again, both directions identical in the dim light.

“Jake,” she whispered into her earpiece. “I’m at another junction. No sign of him yet. Which way did you go?”

“Still following the left branch,” came the reply, slightly staticky. “It’s heading toward the east wing. Nothing so far.”

Jenna hesitated, then turned right again, following her instinct. The new passage was even narrower than the first, the ceiling so low she had to duck her head to avoid the exposed beams. The air felt thicker here, stale with decades of confinement.

She’d gone perhaps twenty feet when the passage took a sharp turn to the left. Jenna paused, listening. From somewhere ahead came a faint rustling—the same sound they’d heard in Ruth’s bedroom. The suspect had to be just beyond the turn, moving through the walls with the confidence of someone who knew every inch of the maze.

But when she rounded the corner, flashlight extended, the beam fell on nothing but blank wall. The passage ended in a dead end—bare wood panels, identical to those lining the rest of the corridor.

The rustling came again, this time directly in front of her—on the other side of the wall.

“He’s here,” she whispered into her earpiece. “I’m at what looks like a dead end, but I can hear him moving on the other side.”

“Stay put,” Jake replied. “I’m doubling back. Don’t move until I reach you.”

But Jenna was already examining the wall, studying the wood grain. If there was another passage here, there had to be a way to access it. The panels were smooth beneath her touch, showing no obvious seam or catch—until her fingers brushed against something cool and hard, set into the wood at waist height.

A black onyx button, identical to the ones that had opened the passages elsewhere in the house.

“I think maybe I’ve found something,” she whispered as she pressed the button. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a soft click, a section of the wall slid inward, revealing another narrow corridor beyond.

This new passage was different from the others—shorter and narrower, with a ceiling that sloped downward. Jenna’s flashlight beam couldn’t reach the end of it. She stepped into the opening, moving cautiously. Three steps in, the beam of her flashlight suddenly fell on empty space.

Jenna stopped. The passage didn’t end—it turned downward. She was facing a vertical shaft with a ladder bolted to one wall, its rungs disappearing into darkness below.

She moved closer, shining her light down the shaft. How far down did it go? And what waited at the bottom? She was sure that this hadn’t appeared on the diagrams she’d seen.

She was about to radio Jake when something hit her from behind—a hard shove between her shoulder blades that sent her stumbling forward, and then she was falling, arms flailing.

Jenna twisted in mid-air, trying to protect her head, but the darkness rushed up to meet her. The back of her skull struck something hard, and then—

Nothing.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Jenna came back to herself in fragments—first the taste of copper on her tongue, then the thundering pulse in her ears, and finally, the dull, throbbing pain at the back of her skull. She forced her eyes open, blinking into the dimness around her.

A single oil lamp burned on a table nearby. Victorian furnishings created pockets of shadow throughout the room. She tried to move and her body answered with a chorus of protests. Nothing broken, but the fall had taken its toll.

Her voice caught as she whispered, “Jake, can you hear me?”

Silence answered her. She reached up to her ear, searching for the small plastic device of her radio earpiece, and found nothing but her own skin.

“It’s no use. I took it. I smashed it. Jake won’t find you here.”

The voice came from behind her—smooth, controlled, with a chilling note of satisfaction. Jenna sat up and turned slowly, muscles protesting, to find herself facing Pete Shannon again. Or rather, with the living image of the man from the portrait: dark hair, parted in the middle, thick mustache, high-collared Victorian shirt and waistcoat.

The eyes that met hers were alert, watching her with the focused interest of a scientist examining a particularly interesting specimen.