Chapter 9 - The Loose Brick
Two days later, while the estate staff was busy preparing for a high-profile charity board meeting, Holland slipped away into the east corridor.
He remembered hearing a faint scraping sound behind the wainscoting the night he was locked in the walls.
He dropped to his knees near the baseboard where the old radiator pipes ran through the floorboards.
Prying at a loose section of carved mahogany paneling with a flat butter knife he had smuggled from the breakfast table, he pushed hard against the wood.
With a dry snap, the panel swung inward on concealed hinges, revealing a dark, narrow utility chute leading down into the foundations.
Inside the cavity sat a small, leather-bound journal with a cracked silver clasp.
May you like
Holland’s heart hammered against his ribs as he reached in and pulled the book out into the light.
It was his late mother’s personal journal, missing from her desk since the night she died eighteen months ago.
