Chapter 12 - The House Beneath the Lake
Celeste was still in federal custody.
At least, she was supposed to be.
Sloan confirmed that Celeste had disappeared during a medical transport twelve hours earlier. The transport van was found abandoned near Lake Geneva. Two officers were unconscious but alive. Neither remembered the attack.
The note had been written on paper taken from Saint Orison.
Lucia sat in the Romano library wrapped in a blanket while agents searched the estate.
“Did you see who took your mother?” Adrien asked.
She nodded.
“A lady.”
“Did she have dark hair?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say her name?”
“She said she was your sister.”
Adrien exchanged a look with Sloan.
“What did your mother do?”
“Mama told me to hide in the closet. She said she had to go because the lady knew where my papa was.”
Maria had told Adrien she was a widow.
Her husband, Diego Alvarez, had supposedly died in a warehouse fire two years earlier.
“What exactly did the woman say?” Sloan asked.
Lucia squeezed her teddy bear.
“She said, ‘Diego is alive, but not for long.’”
Adrien felt the pattern click into place.
Diego Alvarez had worked as an accountant for a Romano shipping contractor. His death occurred days after federal investigators began reviewing missing cargo records.
The body had been identified by Victor Bell.
Another sealed coffin.
Another convenient death.
They searched Price’s recovered files and found Diego listed under the code D-A7.
Status: Cooperative asset.
Location: Lake House.
Elena recognized the term.
“Antonio had a private safe house beneath an old boathouse on Lake Michigan,” she said. “It was built into the cliff. Only family knew it existed.”
Antonio, recovering under guard, confirmed the location.
“I used it for emergency meetings,” he said. “Samuel learned about it before my disappearance.”
“Would Diego be there?” Adrien asked.
“Possibly. Samuel used accountants to reconstruct the encryption sequence after Elena vanished.”
“Why take Maria?”
“Diego may refuse to cooperate unless he sees her.”
Lucia grabbed Adrien’s hand.
“Bring Mama back.”
He looked toward Sloan.
She hesitated.
Adrien had not yet been sentenced, but the terms of his cooperation allowed supervised assistance when federal lives or evidence were at stake.
“You remain under my control,” she said. “No weapons unless authorized. No independent action.”
Adrien agreed.
The boathouse stood on an isolated stretch of rocky shoreline. Storm clouds covered the lake, and waves struck the cliff below.
Agents found signs of forced entry but no vehicles.
Inside, the floor opened to a lift descending beneath the rock.
The underground safe house contained bedrooms, a communications center, and a glass-walled room overlooking the dark water.
Maria sat tied to a chair.
Across from her, a thin, bearded man stared in disbelief.
“Maria?”
“Diego.”
She began sobbing.
Celeste stood beside them holding a pistol.
Adrien entered with Sloan and two agents.
“Put it down,” Sloan ordered.
Celeste did not turn.
“I didn’t hurt them.”
“You escaped federal custody and kidnapped a witness.”
“I saved her husband.”
Diego looked toward Adrien.
“They told Maria I was dead. They told me she and Lucia had been killed after I refused to decrypt the accounts.”
Maria shook with grief and anger.
“Two years.”
“I tried to escape.”
“Two years, Diego.”
Celeste faced Adrien.
“Samuel kept him here. Price continued after Samuel’s arrest. I found the location in Lydia’s files.”
“Why didn’t you tell the authorities?”
“Because the authorities included Price.”
“Price is in custody.”
“And how many others remain inside the government?”
Sloan’s expression hardened.
“Put down the gun.”
Celeste looked at Adrien.
“I wanted to finish something good.”
“You could have asked for help.”
“Would you have come?”
He did not answer quickly enough.
Pain crossed her face.
“That is what I thought.”
A mechanical lock engaged behind them.
Steel shutters dropped over the exits.
The communications screens activated.
Samuel appeared on every monitor.
He was inside a prison medical ward.
“How?” Sloan demanded.
Samuel smiled.
“Recorded message. By the time you see this, the lake house protocol has begun.”
A countdown appeared.
Ten minutes.
Antonio’s voice came through Adrien’s earpiece from the command vehicle.
“The safe house has a destruction system. Charges inside the cliff will collapse the structure into the lake.”
“Can it be stopped?”
“There is a manual release inside the submerged maintenance chamber.”
Sloan examined the blueprint.
“The chamber is outside the glass wall. Twenty feet underwater.”
Celeste looked toward the lake.
“I’ll go.”
“No,” Adrien said.
“This happened because of me.”
“It happened because our family taught you suffering was the only way to earn a place in it.”
Celeste’s eyes filled.
Adrien removed his jacket.
Sloan blocked him.
“You are not authorized.”
“Then arrest me again after.”
He broke the emergency glass cover, released the underwater hatch, and stepped into the freezing maintenance tunnel.
Before entering the lake, he looked back at Celeste.
“When this is over, you will answer for what you did.”
“I know.”
“But you will not answer alone.”
Adrien plunged into the black water.
The countdown reached eight minutes.
The maintenance chamber lay beneath the boathouse, accessible through a corroded steel grate. Adrien forced it open and swam inside.
Three control levers lined the wall.
Antonio’s voice guided him through the radio.
“Pull red, then blue, then release the center lock.”
Adrien pulled red.
Nothing happened.
“Blue next,” Antonio said.
Adrien reached for it.
A steel gate slammed behind him.
His oxygen line snagged.
The countdown reached four minutes.
May you like
Inside the safe house, water began leaking through cracks in the ceiling.
And Lucia’s brass shoe keychain slipped from Adrien’s pocket, disappearing into the darkness below.
