Page 11 of Unraveling Connections

“I suppose, but something about this is just not sitting right with me,” I reply. “Don’t forget she somehow disabled the cameras that Alaric set up outside of the house.”

“And yet she didn’t bother doing anything with the ones in the house, ones that she definitely knew existed because they’re hers,” Jensen replies, making a really good point.

I frown, “See, none of this is making sense.”

I press play again, watching the feed as she gets up and angrily kicks the piece of carpet. She seems to take a moment to compose herself, looking down at the floor before her head suddenly snaps up, and she quickly moves over to the window.

I glance down at the time stamp, “That’s around the time we arrived.”

“Shit, seriously, she was in the house for that long?”

I shrug, “She must have been unless there’s another person that did all the camera disabling and shit for her.”

“That’s pretty fucking unlikely,” Jensen replies.

I shrug, “I know, but really, there’s a lot about this situation that I would’ve said was unlikely.”

“Yeah, I guess you're right,” he replies.

We both fall silent as we watch Luc's mom rush back through the house, I have to switch through quite a few cameras in order to follow her movements. My curiosity piques as I watch her make her way into the room that we're in now. We watch as she taps away at the computers, looking nervously at the door every few minutes. I don’t know what she thinks she does but she definitely didn’t delete any footage of her in the house.

My eyes widen as I watch her press a button underneath the shelving on the wall behind us and it opens up, revealing a room which she steps into, the shelving closing seamlessly behind her. I speed the video up a bit to see if she came back out again, but the shelving unit doesn’t move and the next movement in the room is when Jensen and I enter.

Which means she didn’t come back out.

Sharing a look with Jensen, I slowly stand up and pull my gun free from its holster, Jensen’s gun already in his hand, as we approach the shelving unit. I move to where the button is as Jensen takes up position on the other side of where it should open. It would not be smart to stand directly in front of it since if she is armed, she will more than likely start shooting straight away.

He readies his gun and then gives me a nod. I press the button, hearing the whoosh of the release as the shelving slowly starts to move before I, too, get in position. When the door is fully opened, Jensen and I wait a moment just to make sure thatno one starts shooting before we slowly move forward, glancing around the corner and into the room.

The room is reasonably small; there is a metal framed bed on one side, a few shelves with food that will not be going out of date any time soon, and some other supplies you would need if you were going to stay here for a while. It’s a safe room and a well-equipped one at that. What is not typical of a safe room in a house like this is the second door, which is left standing open and revealing a staircase that is going down.

Jensen and I move around the room, making sure that there isn’t anyone hiding under the bed or anything like that. We clearly saw her enter this room, and she didn’t come back out.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take us very long at all to check the room, since it is not a very large space.

“Blood,” Jensen signs as he points to droplets on the floor near the second door.

“They look fresh, and they have been smeared,” I reply, also signing. I am incredibly grateful that we have this way to communicate silently and easily. I move closer and crouch down, studying it and the area. I pull out an evidence bag that I always seem to carry with me these days and a swab—collecting a sample of the blood and putting the sealed bag back in my pocket. Looking into the darkened stairway, I can just about make out the telltale staining of more blood. Quite a lot more. Glancing up at Jensen, I sign, “There is more. A lot more.”

He frowns as he moves behind me and looks into the dark space, his eyes squinting before they widen slightly when he sees the blood.

Lifting his hands, he signs, “But how? We followed her through the house on the cameras and didn’t see her get injured once. When she stepped foot in this room, she wasn’t injured.”

“Which means she has either done a ‘you’, tripped, and seriously hurt herself this way, or I was right earlier, and there was a third person who was waiting in here for her.”

Jensen sighs and pulls a face, “We’re going to have to go down the dark and creepy stairway, aren’t we?”

I grin excitedly and nod, signing, “Yep.”

“It disturbs me how excited you are about this,” he signs.

I just roll my eyes and stick my tongue out at him before I stand back up and ready my gun. The stairway is dark but there are dim lights just up ahead giving off a barely there glow. It’s not much but it is enough to be able to see where we are going.

Stepping over the puddle of blood, I move into the stairwell and start to descend the steps as quietly as I can, Jensen following behind me. The space is small, not wide enough for two people to stand next to each other, and, in fact, is small enough that if I were to stick my elbows out, they would brush against the walls on either side. I am incredibly grateful that I am not claustrophobic.

As we move downward, there is a distinct musty smell that says that this stairwell hasn’t been used for a very long time, which makes sense since no one has lived here since Luc’s father went to prison. This place smells really damp as well though because it’s such an enclosed area, it is not a pleasant smell at all. The blood trail carries on down the steps, which are surprisingly longer than I would have guessed they would be. Eventually, they come to an end, and I am even more surprised to see a long, dimly lit, and very cramped hallway stretching in front of us. There are no windows, and if I really had to guess, I would have to say that we’re actually standing in the old servant's walkways, the ones that big houses like this had in order to make sure that the servants were never seen or heard, my lip curls in disgust.

Despite how bland, bleak and modern the rest of the house looks, its bones are actually pretty old, and servants’ walkwaysis the easy explanation I can come up with to explain why this stairway and random corridor are here.

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