Chapter 4 - Beneath the Fountain.
Adrian pulled Bella behind him and pressed his ear to the wall.
The knocking came again.
Three slow taps.
Two quick ones.
Bella clutched his hand.
"That's Mom's signal."
Adrian opened the wardrobe and found nothing but dresses and shoes.
Then he noticed fresh scratches beneath the lowest shelf.
The shelf lifted to reveal a narrow speaking tube built into the wall.
A woman's breath whispered through it.
"Not safe."
The line went silent.
Adrian remembered Sophie laughing about the speaking tubes when they renovated the nursery.
The network had been built for servants a century earlier, and Eleanor had ordered it sealed.
Sophie secretly restored several lines, claiming Bella might someday need a way to call for help during a power failure.
At the time, Adrian had teased her for expecting a siege.
Now the old brass tube felt more trustworthy than every modern device his mother controlled.
Adrian called Officer Keene from a phone Eleanor could not monitor.
At dawn, Keene arrived without a patrol car.
Bella led them to the stone fountain at the center of the south garden.
Behind a carved lion's head, Adrian found a tiny camera lens.
Its wire disappeared underground.
Tomas emerged from the hedge carrying pruning shears.
"Your wife installed that camera before the crash," he said.
"She said the house was watching her, so she decided to watch it back."
Tomas gave Adrian a mud-stained memory card.
"I pulled this yesterday before Mr. Doran found it."
Tomas explained that Sophie had paid him in cash to maintain the hidden camera.
Every Sunday, he moved its recordings into the hollow base of a stone angel near the chapel.
After the crash, Eleanor ordered the angel removed, but Tomas hid the final cards beneath his floorboards.
Someone searched his cottage the previous night and took all but one.
"I should have brought this to you years ago," Tomas said.
"But your mother showed me pictures of my grandson outside his school."
Adrian understood then that Eleanor did not need chains when terror worked more quietly.
The card contained one surviving clip from the missing eleven minutes.
Eleanor stood on the patio in her white robe while Miles held Bella's shoulders.
Ruth was nowhere near them.
Eleanor placed the tape in Bella's lap.
"Choose," she said on the recording.
"Your wrists, or your father's future."
Bella extended her hands.
Adrian had to watch Miles wrap the tape around them.
He heard his daughter apologize for making the tape expensive.
Keene swore under her breath.
"This is enough for an arrest."
A gunshot cracked from beyond the hedge.
The fountain chipped inches from Adrian's head.
Keene pulled Bella down.
Tomas ran toward the service path, chasing a shadow in a dark jacket.
A second shot sounded.
Then Tomas screamed.
Adrian found him beside the hedge with blood spreading across his sleeve.
The wound was not fatal, but the attacker had taken the memory card.
Tomas gripped Adrian's shirt.
"Saint Orison," he gasped.
"That's where they kept Sophie."
Keene called for an ambulance while Adrian searched the service path.
He found a white thread caught on a thorn and a fresh tire mark from an estate utility vehicle.
Miles had access to every vehicle and every blind corner in the garden.
Eleanor appeared at the far end of the path, moving toward them without haste.
She looked at Tomas's wound and asked whether he had fallen.
Adrian saw that her robe sleeve was wet from the fountain spray.
She had been close enough to hear the shot.
His fingers opened around a photograph.
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It showed Sophie standing behind a barred clinic window.
On the back, someone had written yesterday's date.
