Chapter 4 - The Room Beneath the Rose Garden
The power returned ninety seconds later.
Lucas was stable.
But the emergency had changed everything.
Someone had deliberately cut the power from inside the house.
That meant our enemy was still here.
Daniel Voss was the obvious suspect.
He was also missing.
His office was empty.
His phone was on the desk.
His car was still in the garage.
He had vanished without leaving through the gates.
There was only one place he could have gone.
The underground service tunnels.
The Duca estate had been built over an old military communications facility. Most of the tunnels had been sealed decades ago.
Victor Raines had reopened some of them during the estate renovation.
I had never asked why.
Now I understood how someone could move around my house without appearing on the cameras.
I took four men with me.
Marco insisted on coming.
Sophie grabbed my sleeve.
"I want to go."
"No."
"My mommy knows about the tunnels."
"I said no."
She looked at Lucas's door.
"Then he dies."
I stopped.
She pointed at the room.
"If we don't find what Mommy hid, he dies."
She was seven years old.
But there was no childishness in her voice.
I allowed her to come.
We entered the tunnel beneath the kitchen.
The air was cold.
Wet.
The stone walls were lined with rusted cables.
At the far end, we found a steel door.
Locked.
Sophie took out the key.
It fit.
Inside was a hidden room.
Boxes.
Files.
Medical samples.
Photographs.
Old security recordings.
And one massive ventilation diagram covering the wall.
Marco stared.
"What the hell is this?"
I stepped closer.
The diagram showed the estate's HVAC system.
A red marker circled one junction.
The pediatric wing.
Lucas's bedroom.
Beside it were Isabella's handwritten notes.
Airflow contamination.
Continuous low dose.
Symptoms mimic autoimmune disorder.
I felt numb.
She had been right.
Someone had been poisoning my son through the air.
But then I saw another note.
The source is not the ventilation system.
The ventilation only distributes it.
I read the next line.
The substance enters through the garden irrigation system.
I stared at the diagram.
Isabella's roses.
Her garden.
My stomach dropped.
The dead roses were never random.
The garden had been contaminated.
The water carried something into the soil.
The HVAC intake was beside the greenhouse.
Someone had been poisoning the estate through irrigation.
And the person with control over the estate's grounds maintenance was...
Daniel Voss.
I scanned the files.
There were payment records.
Private transfers.
Shell companies.
One account had received money for "environmental treatment services."
Another had paid a laboratory in Maryland.
Another had paid Victor Raines.
All signed by Daniel.
But there was something else.
A photograph.
Isabella standing beside Amelia Green.
On the back:
We found where it's coming from.
Then another note.
He knows.
I turned the photograph over.
A second photo was taped beneath it.
A man standing near the garden.
I knew him.
My father.
Alessandro Duca.
Dead for ten years.
I stared at the photograph in disbelief.
Why would Isabella have investigated my father?
Marco looked over my shoulder.
"Is that your father?"
"Yes."
"Then we have a problem."
I looked at him.
"What?"
"The photo was taken yesterday."
My blood froze.
I turned the photograph around.
Timestamp on the image.
Three days earlier.
Impossible.
My father had been dead for ten years.
Unless the man in the photograph wasn't my father.
I zoomed in.
The face was similar.
Very similar.
But not identical.
A scar appeared on the man's cheek.
My father never had one.
"Who is he?"
Before anyone could answer, we heard footsteps.
Heavy.
Fast.
Someone was running through the tunnel.
I drew my weapon.
"Stop!"
The footsteps continued.
My men spread out.
A shadow appeared at the end of the corridor.
Daniel Voss.
He was bleeding.
His shirt was soaked in blood.
He raised his hands.
"Don't shoot."
I stepped closer.
"Where have you been?"
He laughed bitterly.
"Running."
"From me?"
"From the people who are going to kill all of us."
"Start talking."
Daniel looked at the photo.
Then at Sophie.
His face changed.
"You shouldn't have brought her."
I raised my gun.
"What did you do to my son?"
Daniel shook his head.
"I didn't poison Lucas."
"Your accounts paid for the chemicals."
"Because I was laundering money for the man who did."
"Who?"
Daniel looked at the ceiling.
"We were running out of time."
"Who?"
He swallowed.
Then whispered:
"Your uncle."
I stared at him.
"My uncle is dead."
Daniel gave me a broken smile.
"No."
May you like
He pointed toward the tunnel entrance.
"Your uncle has been alive for twenty years."
