Sixteen-year-old Toby Gentry races to uncover $4.2 million in stolen underworld assets after his pregnant sister-in-law disappears from a locked Charleston cellar, exposing a deadly family conspira...
The air in the cellar felt thick and heavy, like something was pressing down on my chest. I stared at the dark opening behind the loose floorboard, the one Maeve had left behind.
My wedding ring still sat on the rough wood plank beside the positive pregnancy test. And there, almost hidden, was the torn photo of me as a kid, my face ripped right in half.
I knelt, pushing aside the crumbling brick dust. The tunnel opening was barely wide enough for me to squeeze through, a tight, claustrophobic space that smelled of damp earth and salt-tinged rot. But Maeve was gone, and this was the only direction she could have gone.
I took a deep breath, ignoring the rising panic, and pushed myself into the darkness.
The brick was rough against my hands and knees. It felt like an old passage, not something recently dug. The air grew colder, and a faint metallic tang joined the damp earth smell. I moved slowly, feeling for obstacles in the pitch black.
Minutes stretched. My breath rasped in my ears. The tunnel curved gently, leading me deeper beneath the mansion’s foundations. Then, my hand brushed against something soft.
It was fabric. I pulled it closer, my fingers tracing the raised threads. An embroidered baby blanket. And then I saw the faded stitching in the dim light filtering from behind me: “Baby Toby.”
My own baby blanket. Maeve had carried *my* blanket down here.
A faint whisper reached me then, a low murmur of voices. Maeve’s voice. It was too soft to make out words, but it was definitely her. And she wasn’t alone.
A man’s deeper voice rumbled in response, a low hum I couldn’t place. They were close, just around the next bend. The sounds were coming from deeper in the shadows, far from any natural light. Maeve wasn’t trapped. She was *talking* to someone.
My heart hammered against my ribs. This wasn’t a rescue mission anymore. This was something else entirely.
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