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Chapter Twenty-Four
Reid
The look on Holly’s face as I reached for the lever that was behind the portrait of old man Anderson was everything, I knew it would be.
I called Alex earlier to debrief after he texted me about his call with the director. He was short but mentioned that we needed to be prepared to move within the next forty-eight hours, and that the bureau reconfirmed what I already suspected, Holly needs protection. I am to keep eyes on her at all times.
Fortunately for me, that isn’t going to prove to be much of a hardship. I can’t take my eyes off of her as it is.
I got the electrical switched over via panels located on the backside of the property, which allowed Alex to pick up some aerial footage via satellite. Using heat sensing technology and the blueprints my father had saved in the file for this claim, he located both a hidden elevator as well as the entrance to what we believe are the tunnels.
According to the conversation Holly had with Laurel, we should have a connection to high-speed internet by tomorrow at the latest, which will give him the access he needs to get inside visually. I could feel the anxiety rolling off of Alex through the phone, something is about to go down. I need for Holly and me to be prepared for anything.
Luckily, we’ve got time. A forty-eight-hour lead time in my line of work is practically unheard of, sometimes we only get minutes. This time is invaluable, and right now, while Holly thinks we’re playing around and exploring for her design project and the insurance claim, I’m mapping and I’m teaching her in the process. While I don’t believe this house is haunted, it does hold secrets; secrets that we need to know the ins and outs of before the final hour ticks over. When we move, we will have to be prepared to move fast and know every available route and passage.
I look to the only other wall in the room that isn’t covered floor to ceiling in books as my fingers brush the cold metal of the lever. The hinges are rusted with age, but it pulls down without much protest, and I watch as the wall shifts.
Holly’s blue eyes doubled in size as she looked from my hand to the lever and then to the wall that now appeared as a door.
“How? How, Reid? I’ve seen the blueprints for this house, I studied them. Nowhere in those blueprints did I see anything about secrets doors.” Her voice rose in a panic, and I let her release it. It’s not every day you find a hidden elevator.
“Who sent over your blueprints? Laurel?” I asked already fairly certain I knew the answer. The blueprints Holly received were modified.
“Yes, that’s who I’ve been dealing with since the beginning. Why? Where did yours come from?” Holly crossed her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a pair of high-waisted blue jean shorts today with a black V-neck t-shirt. She didn’t bother putting makeup on after her shower, and to be honest, she’s even more stunning without it.
“Wilks is a friend of my father’s, he sent over the set we received personally. I think that’s where the discrepancy lies.” All true.
“But why would they send me a set of inaccurate blueprints?” I could see her mind working through her own questions faster than I could answer.
“I don’t think it’s that they sent you an inaccurate set, I think it’s more that they wanted to keep you on a need-to-know basis, and secret passageways aren’t necessary to the renovation.”
“Like hell they aren’t. How is that fair? What is this, some sort of boys’ club and sweet little Holly gets left out in the dark because I don’t possess a dick? Literally, hell, Laurel probably wouldn’t have even told me where the damn electrical panel was if it weren’t for you being here too. And what’s with her not even bothering to mention to me that you were coming here in the first place?” The more she spoke, the angrier she got, stumbling over so much information and missing pieces but then putting them back together all at once. This is something I need her to figure out on her own, but it doesn’t mean I can’t help her along a little.
“Boys’ club, huh, you might be on to something with that. I guess I didn’t think about it that way.” I planted the seed for her.
“You wouldn’t, would you?” She rolled her eyes but then darted them right back to mine as realization hit her.
“Chapman. Chapman.” She repeated my last name over and over again piecing bits of the puzzle together on her own. “Your dad, is he part of a country club? You said he was friends with Wilks?” There you go.
“Ah, yeah, I believe so. He and Sylvester Wilks have been acquaintances for a while.”
“My father is friends with Wilks too. I swear if that man had anything to do with me landing this renovation project. The nerve of him to step in on a business I have worked my ass off to build from the ground up. Years, for years I have built my career with no help from anyone. I didn’t even touch the damn trust fund, unlike Til and Noel. Oh no, because they couldn’t wait to get their hands on that money, but not Holly. I did it the hard way, my way. This is my business, and if he thinks after all these years he’s going to step in, well he’s got another thing coming.” Her thoughts took a right turn when I thought they were headed left.
“Your father? You’re worried about your father’s involvement?” I ignored the open door to the elevator and let Holly vent. This is the information I need. I need her to fill in the blanks for me, so I know if I’m protecting her or if we’re fleeing the country as fugitives when this is all over. I handed over my father willingly, but I’m keeping Holly. If that means we end up on an island far, far away from here, well those are the options we’re facing right now.
“My parents were…how can I put this…detached. Oh, they loved Tilly, she was the first born, the country club debutante they always wanted. She followed all of the rules and paraded around doing as she was told, she still does, married to her damn foot doctor husband. Then there was Noel, the wild one. She took her trust fund money and decided to travel the world writing sex with a storyline and calling it a novel. And then there was me, the forgotten, and that was fine; I preferred it. My father was always so busy with his investments and his associates, and then there were the women. And my mother, oh she wasn’t much better with her dinner parties and fucking the pool boy and God knows who else. I was out of there the first chance I got, and I haven’t looked back, well other than maintaining my relationship with my sisters. My father called me a couple of years ago and wanted to discuss my trust fund, but that conversation ended quickly when I told him where he could put his money. He can’t buy my love, and he especially can’t do it now.
I was a child, and he all but ignored me. I needed love and attention, and yet they shuffled us between nannies and piano lessons and etiquette classes, all for our own good mind you. And now he’s sniffing around my business. Oh, hell no. Let me borrow one of your guns, Reid, I have some things I need to take care of.” Holly dropped her pen and notepad down on the desk that sat in the center of the library as she paced the floor and continued to fume, her tiny fists flexing open and closed at her sides. Her anger was palpable as she began to realize that her father may somehow be involved in this, and he is, just not necessarily in the way she thinks.
???
Holly
“Holly, baby, breathe.” Reid hesitantly approached me as I walked the length of the library overwhelmed as truth after truth smacked me right in the face.
Why didn’t I see it before? How could I be so blind to something that looking at it now is so blatantly obvious?
“God Reid, you probably think I’m some spoiled rich brat, don’t you? Using daddy’s connections to land these large contracts. Jesus, I always thought Til was bad, but at least she married into money. She spread her legs for her spot on the fucking real housewives. I just look like a damn moocher. Shit, that’s why you call me princess, isn’t it? It all makes sense now.” I backed away from Reid as I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration and held in the tears that threatened to spill over onto my cheeks.
