On their way through the kitchen, Molly and Tony ran into Kevin, who was coming in the back door carrying a large black case.
“What’s that?” Molly asked.
“It’s my snake,” Kevin said, continuing into the butler’s pantry. “I forgot I had it in the truck.”
“Your what?”
“It’s a borescope. I use it to check under porches and in attics for rats and other critters before I crawl around in there. I thought it might be helpful after I drill the hole in the basement wall. It has a camera and an LED light on the end of the probe.”
Following Kevin, Tony said, “I don’t believe it. You guys are searching for that secret room from the book?”
“Molly found the plans in the old desk. So, yeah, I gotta know.” Pausing at the basement door, he added, “Tony, what are you doing here?”
“I came to check on Molly. I wondered why she wasn’t in the hospital bed where she was supposed to be.”
“Yeah, she talked the doctor into releasing her as long as she had a babysitter.”
“That’s what I heard,” he said, giving Molly a narrow-eyed look, which she ignored as she preceded him down the stairs.
While Kevin set up the scope, Elise and Molly replaced the old bulbs and switched on the lamps, illuminating the basement corner.
Tony directed his laser-focused stare at Tommy. “Who are you?”
“Tommy Campbell,” he said, offering his hand.
Tony shook Tommy’s hand but narrowed his eyes. “You’re the basement prowler.”
“Huh?” Tommy’s eyes widened as he gaped at Molly.
“This is Detective Shannon,” Molly said.
“It…it was a misunderstanding,” Tommy stammered. “I’m a guest here.”
Molly touched Tony’s arm. “We’ve sorted it out. Nothing to worry about.”
“Hmm.” Tony gave Tommy his “I’ve got my eyes on you” cop look.
Kevin gunned the power tool. “Here we go.”
The whirring sound of the drill echoed through the basement. As he drilled into the wall at about shoulder height, pieces of the wall cracked and flaked off in big chunks.
“What’s this?” Tommy asked.
Kevin turned off the drill, picked up a handful of the wall material, and crumbled it between his fingers. “It’s stucco.”
“I thought you said the basement was poured concrete,” Tommy said.
“It is. That’s what I drilled into when I installed those metal shelves.” Kevin pulled off more stucco. “This is strange. There are concrete blocks under here.”
The three men cleared the stucco off the wall until all the blocks were uncovered, revealing an area about the size of a small one-car garage door. When they’d finished, they stood back and stared at what they’d uncovered.
“Who do you think sealed up the room?” Molly asked.
“Our grandfather, perhaps,” Kevin said.
“I asked Vanessa if she remembered anything about a secret room,” Molly said.
“And she doesn’t?” Tony asked. Noticing Molly rubbing her forehead near the bandage, he pulled a chair from the corner and motioned for her to sit.
“No, and I talked to Nana, too,” Molly said, giving Tony a smile of thanks. “She’d heard rumors about the bootlegging but nothing more.” He gave her shoulder a little squeeze.
“So, it had to be our grandfather,” Kevin said. “Most likely before Vanessa and our mother were born, maybe even before he and Grandma got married.”
“He probably wanted to cover it all up,” Tommy offered. “Didn’t want anyone to know what his father had done.”
“Makes sense,” Molly said. “Our grandfather was an attorney and later a county judge. He wouldn’t have wanted any scandal.”
“Well, he sure did a good job covering this up,” Tony said. “He blocked up the space, covered it with stucco, and painted it so it looked the same.”
Kevin retrieved a broom from the opposite side of the basement and swept the stucco debris into a pile. “This corner was always dark and was used for storage, so I never looked closely enough to notice a difference in that section of the wall.”
“We were kids,” Molly said. “Our mother must have known something. She talked to Aubrey, and he dedicated the book to her and mentioned her in the acknowledgments, so her contribution must have been significant. I can’t believe she kept this secret all those years.”
Kevin scratched his head. “What gets me is that the person she told about it was Aubrey Rhodes.”
“Perhaps it had something to do with Elnora’s death,” Elise said. “In the book, Eleanor died after an argument with her father. She took a header off the terrace. Could have been something similar.”
Kevin changed his drilling location to the grout between two blocks, fashioning a hole large enough to insert the probe. Tommy fed the snake into the opening while Kevin directed the articulating LED tip and activated the camera. Elise, Molly, and Tony gathered around Kevin, glued to the images on the three-and-a-half-inch monitor.
“It’s so dark in there,” Elise said. “The LED light barely illuminates the space.”
“The area isn’t that big,” Molly said.
“How big is it?” Tony asked.
“About nine by twelve, according to the plans,” Kevin said.
“What’s that?” Molly said. “I see something.”
Kevin stepped closer, giving Tommy added length to feed through the opening.
“What do you see?” Tommy asked.
Kevin pressed a button on the bottom of the console to brighten the light. Then, he used the trigger to pan the probe up and down and side to side.
“Looks like wooden shelves,” Tony said.
“I think you’re right.” Kevin continued moving the probe sideways.
“Wait. Stop,” Molly said. “Did you see a reflection of something?”
Kevin grunted as he moved the probe back to focus on the object the camera had caught.
“Is that what I think it is?” Tony asked.
Kevin held the console steady as he pressed the button and snapped a picture of the bottle of Bushmills Irish whiskey on the shelf.
“Looks like it,” Kevin said.
Tommy took a step backward so he could see the LED screen. “Is it empty or full?”
Kevin zoomed in and backed out. “I can’t tell.”
“Can you see anything else?” Molly asked. “The plans showed something in the corner. Maybe a safe or some kind of hidey-hole.”
Kevin manipulated the probe to continue past the whiskey bottle to the end of the shelf. After a moment, he tapped on the screen. “Yes, there is something in the corner that could be a compartment or a safe.”
“Oh. My. God! The secret room is real!” The outburst came from behind them. Kevin startled and juggled the tool to hold on to it.
Whirling around, they saw a forty-something man and woman at the bottom of the basement stairs. The woman’s eyes were wide, her mouth open, and her hands were on her face. She reminded Molly of the little boy from the movie Home Alone.
“Mr. and Mrs. Henderson,” Molly said, her racing heart slowly returning to its normal rhythm.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Mr. Henderson said. “We came downstairs for the glass of wine Elise mentioned earlier and saw the basement door open. We heard your voices, so we peeked in.”
“You’ve actually found it.” Mrs. Henderson, a svelte woman with a blond bob, walked past them to examine what they’d uncovered.
Kevin gestured toward the wall. “We did.”
“I read Aubrey Rhodes’s book and wondered if it was fiction or possibly true.” Mrs. Henderson put both hands flat against the wall as if she were trying to push open a door.
Mr. Henderson looked over Kevin’s shoulder at the image on the console. “You found a bottle of Irish whiskey?”
“Apparently so,” Kevin said. “It was our great-grandfather’s favorite whiskey, or so the story goes.”
“Are you going to tear down all the blocks now?” Mr. Henderson asked, pushing his round horn-rimmed glasses up on his nose.
Molly’s eyes widened. “Surely you’re not taking a sledgehammer to that wall tonight?”
Kevin shook his head. “No. I want to examine this in the daylight, do some measurements, and know what I’m getting into structurally before removing any blocks. Then, I’ll probably chisel out one of the top ones and see what’s what.”
Tony gestured toward Molly. “She needs to lie down. I found her on the floor upstairs when I came in earlier.”
“What?” Kevin said. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Elise put her arm around Molly. “You should have told me you were feeling faint.”
Molly shrugged. “I wanted to see if this was true, just like everyone else.”
Elise urged Molly toward the stairs. “Let’s go. Time to get you into bed, or that doctor will send you back to the hospital in the morning.”
Mrs. Henderson sidled up to Molly. “In the book, there were hints that after Eleanor, the daughter, died, she haunted the house and drove her father crazy until they put him in an asylum.”
Molly looked at Elise. “Really? And you didn’t tell me.”
“You hate spoilers,” Elise said, nudging Molly toward the stairs.
“So, is this house haunted?” Mrs. Henderson asked.
Molly turned to face her guest. “Mrs. Henderson, we—”
“I’m Stephanie, and I need to know if—”
The basement lights flickered off and on.