Chapter 7: The House Had Secret Rooms
We did not go to the courthouse.
Rebecca contacted the state police, the county prosecutor, and federal agents assigned to the financial fraud referral. I called Sarah and told her Jamie had been taken.
Her scream still haunts me.
Within minutes, officers were dispatched to the mansion. Gertrude did not answer the door.
The gates were locked.
The house appeared empty.
By the time we arrived, state police vehicles lined the road. Neighbors stood outside watching the home that had hosted elegant parties become a crime scene.
Chief Barrett arrived in his patrol vehicle and attempted to take command.
A state police captain stopped him at the gate.
“This is outside your authority now.”
Barrett’s face hardened.
“I’m the local chief.”
“You’re also named in an active corruption complaint.”
For the first time, I saw fear in his eyes.
Police entered the mansion with a warrant based on suspected child abduction, financial crimes, and evidence tampering.
Sarah stood beside me shaking.
“She’ll hide him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You lived there for five years.”
“I lived in three rooms. Gertrude never allowed me near the study, the west wing, or the basement.”
The search teams found no sign of Jamie.
His foster jacket lay on a chair in the front hall.
A cup of warm cocoa sat untouched in the kitchen.
One rear security camera showed Gertrude’s car entering the property forty minutes earlier. It did not show the car leaving.
“She’s still here,” I said.
The captain disagreed.
“There may be another exit.”
Sarah looked toward the old garden wall.
“The delivery tunnel.”
Everyone turned.
“What tunnel?” Rebecca asked.
“The mansion was built on the site of an old coastal hotel. Gertrude once mentioned underground service passages used during Prohibition.”
Officers searched the basement.
Behind a wine rack, they found a concealed door.
The tunnel beyond it divided into three directions.
One led toward the garage.
Another emerged near the neighboring golf course.
The third descended beneath the oldest section of the house.
I tried to follow the officers, but the captain ordered me to remain upstairs.
“Let trained teams handle this.”
“That’s my son.”
“And charging into an unknown tunnel may get him hurt.”
I knew he was right.
I hated him for being right.
Sarah walked through the study while investigators photographed documents. She stopped near a large portrait of Gertrude.
“Something is wrong.”
“What?”
“The painting.”
It showed my mother in her thirties standing beside a garden fountain. She wore a white dress and held one hand against her stomach.
Sarah moved closer.
“There’s a latch.”
Behind the frame was a wall safe.
Investigators opened it using a warrant and a locksmith.
Inside were jewelry, passports, cash, and dozens of handwritten letters tied with ribbon.
Every letter was addressed to Catherine.
Gertrude’s stillborn daughter.
My Dear Catherine,
One day, what was stolen from us will return.
My Dear Catherine,
The Camden bloodline has come back into my house.
My Dear Catherine,
Sarah is carrying the child meant to restore your place.
The letters became increasingly disturbing.
Gertrude wrote about Jamie as if he were Catherine’s replacement.
She described plans to remove Sarah from his life.
She called me “the carrier’s husband,” not her son.
At the bottom of the safe lay photographs of Jamie taken without Sarah’s knowledge.
Sleeping.
Bathing.
Playing in the garden.
Each photograph had dates and notes.
Posture resembles Thomas.
Eyes resemble Catherine’s imagined features.
Attachment to biological mother remains excessive.
Sarah read the final line and covered her mouth.
“She was studying him.”
Rebecca looked through additional papers.
“This is evidence of long-term planning. But we still need to find him.”
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered immediately.
“Dad?”
Jamie’s voice was faint.
“Jamie! Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
I put the call on speaker.
Sarah moved beside me.
“Baby, can you see anything?”
“It’s dark. Grandma has a lamp.”
“Is she with you?”
“No. She said I have to wait.”
“Do you hear anything?” I asked.
“Water.”
The underground tunnel.
“Is the water dripping?”
“No. Big water. Like the ocean.”
The mansion stood half a mile from the coast.
One tunnel might lead toward the cliffs.
“Jamie, did Grandma give you a phone?”
“I found it in a box.”
The signal crackled.
“Stay on the line.”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. You’re doing very well.”
“Grandma said Mommy is sick.”
“Grandma lied.”
“She said you’re taking the Camden money.”
I looked at Rebecca.
Gertrude had told him about the trust.
“I don’t care about money,” I said. “I care about you.”
The line became weak.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“There’s a red door.”
The call disconnected.
We relayed everything to the search teams.
An architectural historian from the county located old hotel plans. A tunnel led beneath the cliff to a sealed boathouse used decades earlier for smuggling alcohol.
The map showed a red steel flood door.
Teams moved toward the shoreline.
I could not remain behind any longer.
Sarah and I followed in a police vehicle with Rebecca.
The coastal road curved through heavy fog. Waves struck the rocks below.
At the base of the cliff, officers found the tunnel exit partially open.
Gertrude’s car was parked nearby.
Inside the boathouse, a small motorboat rocked against the dock.
No Gertrude.
No Jamie.
The captain found fresh footprints leading toward the flood door.
The underground chamber beyond it had begun filling with seawater due to the rising tide.
“Jamie!” Sarah screamed.
A faint cry answered from behind the red door.
Officers forced it open.
Jamie stood on a wooden crate with water around his knees. He was crying and clutching the stolen phone.
Sarah rushed toward him.
Before she reached him, Gertrude stepped from behind a stone pillar.
She held a flare gun.
“Stop.”
Everyone froze.
Her evening elegance was gone. Her hair was loose, her dress muddy, her eyes wild.
“Put it down,” the captain ordered.
Gertrude held the weapon toward the ceiling.
“You don’t understand what they are stealing.”
I stepped forward.
“They are not stealing anything.”
She looked at me.
“You brought Sarah into this family. You returned the Camden bloodline to me. That was your only purpose.”
“I’m your son.”
“You are weak.”
The words should have hurt.
They did not.
Not anymore.
She pointed toward Jamie.
“He is Catherine’s inheritance.”
“He is a child.”
“He is what should have been mine.”
Jamie cried harder.
Water continued rising.
Sarah moved one step closer.
“Gertrude, let him come to me.”
“You poisoned him against me.”
“You starved him.”
“I disciplined him.”
“You locked him away.”
“I protected him from you.”
Gertrude’s voice cracked.
For the first time, she was not performing for guests, police, or judges. We were seeing the woman beneath the mask.
A woman who had spent decades feeding grief until it became madness.
“You took my child,” she whispered to Sarah.
Sarah stared at her.
“I did not take Catherine.”
“You carried Camden blood. You gave birth to a boy. You received everything I was denied.”
“I received a son,” Sarah said. “Not a fortune.”
Gertrude began crying.
The flare gun trembled.
Jamie stepped off the crate.
“Grandma?”
She turned toward him.
“Stay there.”
“I want my mom.”
Something in her face collapsed.
She raised the flare gun.
Not toward us.
Toward the old fuel drums beside the dock.
The captain shouted.
Gertrude fired.
The flare streaked across the chamber.
It struck the wall inches above the drums and burst into sparks.
Officers rushed her.
At the same moment, a wave slammed through the open tunnel.
Water surged around Jamie’s legs and knocked him from the crate.
Sarah screamed.
I jumped into the freezing water.
Jamie disappeared beneath the surface.
I reached blindly, feeling stone, wood, and debris.
Then my hand closed around his shirt.
I pulled him up.
He coughed and gasped as I carried him toward the steps.
Behind us, officers restrained Gertrude.
She fought them with shocking strength.
“That child is mine!” she screamed.
Sarah took Jamie from my arms and held him against her chest.
“No,” she said.
Her voice was calm now.
Stronger than I had heard it in years.
“He was never yours.”
As officers dragged Gertrude away, she stopped fighting.
She stared at Sarah.
Then at me.
And finally at Jamie.
“You will lose everything without me,” she said.
I looked around at the flooded chamber, the police, the forged records, and the family she had nearly destroyed.
“No,” I answered. “We already lost everything because of you.”
The state police captain approached.
“Your son is safe. Medical transport is waiting.”
For one moment, relief washed through me.
Then Rebecca’s phone rang.
She answered and listened.
Her expression changed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Prudence is gone.”
“Gone where?”
“She emptied three accounts and boarded a private aircraft forty minutes ago.”
“With whose money?”
Rebecca looked at Jamie.
“His.”
May you like
Prudence had transferred nearly four million dollars from the Camden Trust.
And according to the flight plan, she was headed outside the United States.
