Chapter 6 - The Dusty Closet
The old library of the Cross estate was a cavernous, two-story mausoleum of leather, oak, and neglected history. The temperature inside was always five degrees colder than the rest of the house, chilled by the massive stone chimney that hadn't seen a fire since Adrian’s grandfather died in 1984.
The security guards had already checked the room twice, shining flashlights along the rows of towering bookshelves and sweeping their beams under the heavy Chesterfield sofas before moving back out to the grounds.
Adrian walked into the room alone.
He didn't use a flashlight. He let his eyes adjust to the amber glow filtering in from the garden floodlights through the tall, leaded-glass windows.
He stopped in the center of the Persian rug, closed his eyes, and listened.
He didn't listen like a guard looking for a trespasser. He listened like a hunted animal. He stripped away the noise of the winter wind rattling the windowpanes, the distant barking of the search dogs near the kennels, the thrum of the emergency generators in the basement.
He listened for the sound of a dream.
Faint. Irregular. Shivering.
A soft, paper-thin scrape of fabric against rough-hewn pine.
Adrian opened his eyes. His gaze shifted toward the far corner of the room, behind a massive, floor-to-ceiling portrait of his great-grandfather holding a hunting rifle. Behind that portrait lay a narrow, forgotten utility alcove—a space less than three feet wide where the original estate servants had stored kerosene lanterns and coal scuttles a century ago.
Adrian walked across the creaking floorboards, his footsteps light, making no more sound than a falling leaf.
He reached the edge of the heavy carved frame, reached behind it, and found the recessed brass latch of the small paneled door.
He turned the handle.
The hinges groaned softly in the quiet.
Adrian dropped to his knees on the cold, bare floorboards.
Inside the cramped, dusty dark, curled into a tight ball between two rusted kerosene cans and a stack of yellowed newspapers from 1952, sat Sophie Bennett.
She wore only her yellow duckling flannel pajamas. Her bare feet were pulled tightly up toward her belly, her small toes a mottled, terrifying shade of pale blue from the creeping winter chill. Cobwebs clung to her tangled brown curls, and dried tracks of gray dirt and tears streaked her flushed cheeks.
In her arms, clutched so tightly her little knuckles were white, was Mr. Bunny.
She was shivering so violently that her teeth chattered against each other with a dry, rhythmic clicking sound.
When the narrow blade of light hit her face, she didn't scream. She didn't scramble backward.
She simply looked up at Adrian Cross with those massive, ancient blue eyes—eyes that held all the sorrow of a child who believed she had solved the world’s most complicated problem by breaking her own heart.
“Sophie,” Adrian whispered. The word felt like shattered glass in his throat.
May you like
Sophie blinked through her tears, her small chin trembling uncontrollably.
“If I disappear…” she asked, her voice smaller than the rustle of the dry newspapers beneath her knees, “…will you let Mommy stay?”
