Clara: Daddy! Daddy, hurry!
Beatrice: Silence! Stand up this instant!
Beatrice grabbed Clara by the arm and shove her hard toward the corner. The little girl tumbled across the slick white marble, scraping her knee against the base of an antique display table.
Clara: Please don't hurt me anymore!
Beatrice: You don't speak unless I tell you to speak. Wipe your face!
The heavy mahogany doors flew open with a thunderous crash, and Ethan Vance strode in, carrying his leather briefcase, his dark tailored suit wrinkled from a cross-country flight.
Ethan: What on earth is going on here? Clara?
Clara scrambled across the floor, sobbing uncontrollably as she threw her arms around her father's knees.
Clara: Daddy, Mommy is trapped down there!
Ethan: Clara, sweetheart, look at me. What did you just say?
Clara: Mommy is in the dark room under the floor! She's crying!
Ethan dropped his briefcase onto the floor, kneeling down to scoop Clara into his arms. His gaze instantly locked onto the bright crimson welt blooming across her pale cheek.
Ethan: Who did this to your face? Clara, look at me. Did you fall?
Clara: She hit me! Beatrice slapped me because I was trying to open the latch!
Ethan’s head snapped up toward Beatrice, his eyes flashing with sudden, dangerous fury.
Ethan: Beatrice? Did you put your hands on my daughter?
Beatrice: Ethan, darling, please! She's having another one of her hysterical episodes! You know how she gets when she misses Victoria!
Ethan: I asked you a clear question. Did you strike my daughter?
Beatrice: She threw a violent tantrum! She was trying to smash the foundation floor with a brass lamp, Ethan! I only grabbed her wrist to restrain her, and she pulled away and fell!
Clara: That's a lie! She slapped me and shoved me to the floor! She said she was going to lock me in the basement with Mommy!
Beatrice: Ethan, listen to how ridiculous that sounds! Victoria checked herself into the private rehab facility in Arizona three weeks ago. You drove her to the airport yourself!
Ethan: I dropped her at the terminal curb because she insisted on walking inside alone. I haven't heard her voice in twenty-one days.
Beatrice: Because the clinic has strict black-out rules for the first month! I showed you the official letters from the medical board! You saw the signature on her release form!
A faint, desperate banging sound echoed up from the brass floor hatch right between Ethan's polished dress shoes.
Ethan: What is that noise?
Beatrice: It's just the old plumbing pipes rattling! The water pressure in this mansion has been terrible all week. Let the maintenance crew handle it tomorrow.
Clara: Mommy! Pound on the wood again! Daddy is home!
Ethan set Clara down slowly on the hallway rug, his jaw tightening into rigid stone.
Ethan: Where is the key to the cellar hatch, Beatrice?
Beatrice: Ethan, don't indulge this nonsense. You just walked in from a ten-hour business trip in New York. Let me pour you a drink and fix dinner.
Ethan: I didn't ask for a drink. I asked for the key to the cellar hatch.
Beatrice: I don't have it on me! The cleaning staff must have misplaced it days ago!
Ethan reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out his heavy brass keychain, selecting the master bypass key he had kept since buying the estate five years ago.
Leave a Comment