Chapter 10 - The Housekeeper in the Mirror.
The sound was not a gunshot.
It was the electrical breaker cabinet blowing open.
Sparks showered across the concrete wall as the archive lights died.
Gabriel pulled Elena behind a filing cabinet.
Celeste dropped beside Bell.
The steel entrance door slid open several inches.
A flashlight beam cut through the darkness.
Someone stepped inside.
Elena held her breath.
The beam swept left.
Then right.
Gabriel raised a finger and pointed toward a second utility passage behind Bell.
Bell nodded.
They crawled toward it quietly.
The intruder's flashlight moved closer.
Elena reached the utility hatch first.
She pulled it open.
Bell whispered.
"That tunnel reaches the old greenhouse."
"How do you know?" Celeste asked.
"I helped install it."
"Of course you did," Elena muttered.
They slipped inside one by one.
Gabriel entered last and pulled the hatch shut.
The tunnel was narrow, damp, and barely tall enough to crouch through.
Bell led them.
After several minutes, they reached a rusted ladder.
It opened beneath a potting bench inside the estate's abandoned greenhouse.
Moonlight filtered through dusty glass panels overhead.
Elena climbed out and nearly ran into a woman standing beside the far wall.
The woman wore a gray hooded coat.
She held no weapon.
She simply stared at Elena.
Elena stared back.
The face was older.
Thinner.
There was a faint scar near the eyebrow.
But the eyes were the same eyes Elena saw in the mirror every morning.
Mara.
For eight years, Elena had imagined this moment.
She had imagined screaming.
Running.
Falling into her sister's arms.
Instead she could not move.
Mara whispered first.
"You shouldn't have come here."
Elena's shock turned instantly into anger.
"That's what you say to me?"
Mara's eyes filled.
"Elena."
"Eight years."
"I know."
"Mom died thinking you were dead."
Mara flinched as if struck.
"I know."
"You knew?"
"Bell told me."
Elena looked at Bell.
He lowered his eyes.
"And you still stayed gone?"
Mara stepped closer.
"If I contacted you, Hale would have found me through you."
"He found me anyway."
"Because you started digging."
"Because nobody else did."
Gabriel stood several feet away, visibly stunned.
Mara finally looked at him.
Something old and painful passed between them.
"Gabriel."
"Mara."
Elena looked from one to the other.
"How long have you known she was alive?"
Gabriel answered immediately.
"I didn't."
Mara nodded.
"He didn't."
"You expect me to trust either of you right now?"
"No," Mara said.
"Good."
Celeste moved toward the greenhouse door and checked outside.
"We need to leave before whoever entered the archive traces the tunnel."
Mara looked at her.
"You still work for him?"
Celeste's face tightened.
"Apparently we have more than one him."
Mara understood.
"Hale."
Gabriel stepped forward.
"Why are you back?"
Mara looked at Elena first.
"Because Hale is moving money again."
"Northstar?"
"Something newer."
She pulled a flash drive from her coat.
"A company called Meridian Relief."
Gabriel frowned.
"That's our disaster-response foundation."
"It's also laundering tens of millions through fake emergency contracts."
"That's impossible."
"I thought you'd say that."
Mara tossed him the drive.
"Look yourself."
Gabriel caught it.
"Why not go to federal investigators?"
"I did."
"And?"
"Someone inside their task force tipped Hale off."
Elena felt sick.
"So nobody can be trusted."
Mara looked at her.
"Not nobody."
"Who, then?"
Mara's eyes moved toward the wooden broom Elena still carried.
"You kept it."
Elena looked down.
"Kept what?"
"The broom."
Gabriel frowned.
"Why does everyone in this house care about a broom?"
Mara almost smiled.
"Because eight years ago, I hid something inside the handle."
Elena stared at it.
"What?"
"The original Northstar ledger backup."
Bell looked shocked.
"You told me you destroyed it."
"I lied."
Mara stepped closer.
"Mrs. Reyes helped me hollow out the handle before we left."
Elena remembered finding the old broom in the estate's storage shed during her first week.
It had felt familiar for reasons she could not explain.
The handle had a small brass cap at the end.
Mara reached for it.
Elena pulled the broom away.
"No."
Mara stopped.
"Elena."
"You don't get to disappear for eight years, show up in a greenhouse, and immediately start giving me orders."
Mara looked hurt.
"Fair."
"You can explain first."
Mara nodded slowly.
"Then I'll start with the thing you're going to hate most."
Elena crossed her arms.
"Try me."
Mara looked toward Gabriel.
"The person who staged the woman wearing your face on the security footage wasn't Hale."
Elena frowned.
"Then who was it?"
Mara turned toward Celeste.
May you like
Celeste went completely still.
"It was her."
