Page 42 of When You're Forgotten

Nothing.

The corridor’s gloom pressed in, thick with a sense of looming threat.Footsteps… breath… any clue, he craved, but only a yawning silence greeted him.Fear spiked his heartbeat.“Amelia!”he shouted once more, and his voice reverberated off the walls.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Finn’s shoes thudded on the ancient floorboards of Brynmor Hall as he sprinted through the winding corridors.His heart hammered inside his chest, his pulse roaring in his ears.Only moments before, everything had gone dark and Amelia had screamed his name.But now, as he rushed with a pocket flashlight clutched in his sweating hand, the silence felt louder than any shout.He had to find her.

When the building’s lights had suddenly failed, he had lost sight of Amelia, her last call of “Finn!”echoing in the gloom.Now he navigated by the thin beam of his small flashlight—barely enough to illuminate the corridor’s edges and keep him from slamming into the walls.The hush felt suffocating, as though the house itself held its breath.His mind spun with possibilities: Was it Wendell Reed?The masked figure from before?Or some other conspirator?

Turning a sharp corner, he recognized the path leading to the sitting room, where Amelia and he had been combing through case files.He knew that, if Amelia had decided to stay quiet in the dark due to a threat nearby, she would head back to the sitting room and wait for Finn.This is what he hoped for.

He found the door slightly ajar, lamplight flickering within.He shoved the door open—and froze at once.

Amelia was nowhere to be seen.The table was still piled with folders, haphazardly pushed aside, and a chair lay overturned, legs in the air like a dead beetle.Papers lay scattered, suggesting a sudden disturbance.Dread coiled in Finn’s stomach.Had she made it back there?She wouldn’t just vanish without a fight.Or had someone else been rummaging through their things?He moved closer, the flashlight beam revealing a single page from James’s financial documents lying crumpled near the seat.His breath came in sharp bursts, panic rising.

“Amelia?”he shouted, voice echoing off the high ceiling and the drapes covering the tall windows.No answer.Outside, the night pressed against the glass, as though waiting for the final blow.

He fumbled for his phone—inspector Thomas or Rob had men at the gates and wall perimeter.With trembling fingers, he unlocked the device.The corridor behind him remained in darkness.He started dialing, but a sudden rustle from the shadows made him spin around, flashlight darting over the corners of the room.

“What—?”he managed.Then a piercing brilliance flooded his eyes, so white-hot it felt like a camera’s flash magnified a thousand times.He cried out, blinded, phone dropping from his ear but still in his grip.Staggering back, he tried to blink away the searing afterimage.

In that moment of disorientation, someone lunged forward.He felt a jerk at his wrist.His phone wrenched free of his hand.He attempted to pivot and latch onto them, but he only caught the air.Then a violent smash from the floor told him they’d destroyed his phone.

Adrenaline roaring, Finn stumbled backward, half-blind.“Who are you?”he demanded.No one answered.A swirl of movement behind him—someone’s hands scrabbling for his arms.He tried to swing the flashlight around, but he felt them clamp around his head, forearm hooking under his chin.Another set of fingers pressed a cloth to his face, reeking of something pungent.Chloroform.The chemical sting assaulted his nostrils.

He realized his only chance was to not breathe it in.Gasping out, he forced the air from his lungs, twisting his head sharply.A muffled voice cursed, and a second pair of hands gripped, trying to hold the cloth in place.Half-blinded, he flailed an elbow back, connecting with a solid mass.A grunt told him he’d struck flesh, but the arms clung, persistent.

Stars danced in his already overwhelmed vision, the swirl of random shapes from that blinding light.Fighting the urge to gulp air, he hammered backward with his shoulder, stomping down at unseen ankles.A hissed expletive came from behind, and the grip loosened just enough for him to tear free.Another wild swing with the flashlight struck something.He heard a crack.Shouts of pain and dismay rose from the attackers.

Blinking rapidly, he staggered forward, nearly tripping over the fallen phone.When he turned around, heart pounding, the shapes had melted back into the dark corridor, leaving behind only the tang of chloroform lingering in the air.He coughed, letting the rancid smell out of his lungs.

He braced on his knees, blinking away the last of that brutal glare.The darkness around him formed again into the edges of the sitting room’s furniture.Slowly, his sight returned enough to see the shattered remains of his phone lying near the threshold, the screen flickering out.“Damn it,” he gasped between gulps of oxygen.“Amelia… Where are you?”

His mind reeled.He’d been attacked by more than one assailant, no doubt about that.They’d tried to knock him out with chloroform.That meant a coordinated plan, not just a lone murderer.Everything he and Amelia had deduced about the conspiracy flared in his thoughts, coalescing into a grim certainty.He pressed a hand to the wall, mustering his strength.

He licked his dry lips, voice shaking with rage."The Penrose were murdered by a conspiracy," he whispered.The final piece had snapped in place: James, Catherine, perhaps even Wilkie—someone or a group orchestrating everything behind the scenes.The people inside this house.And they'd taken Amelia.

Finn’s chest tightened with fear.If multiple killers were working together, Amelia’s life hung by a thread.He needed help, but his phone was trashed.Inspector Thomas’s men were posted at the estate perimeter, but that was a fair distance.Would he risk leaving the house to find them, losing precious minutes that might seal Amelia’s fate?

He clenched his fists.“No time to run outside,” he muttered, eyes scanning the gloom.“But maybe there’s another phone or some staff.”He recalled the watchers on the perimeter, but the idea of sprinting across the vast grounds in total darkness, with multiple attackers inside, felt like condemning Amelia to whatever fate they had planned.

Taking in a ragged breath, he called out again, “Hello?Anyone?”The echo returned hollow.He exited the sitting room, stepping into the corridor.The sconces along the walls were all extinguished—someone must have cut the power or switched them off.Another sign of a planned assault.

He roamed quickly, peering into side rooms, kitchens, and small parlors.Empty, deserted.“Mrs Hughes?”he called, voice tight.No reply.“Richard?Marianne?”Only silence.The estate, once filled with staff, felt like a ghostly labyrinth.Finn’s breath rasped in his throat, frustration pounding.

He paused near a tapestry in the hallway.It depicted a knight kneeling at the foot of a monstrous creature.Finn felt sick with worry.

Each step he took deepened the sense that the conspirators had carefully orchestrated the entire scenario to isolate him.A swirl of dread wrapped around his mind as he realized that the only two staff who might not have motives—Donald, recently fired, and Evan, in the hospital with food poisoning—were conveniently off the premises.Everyone else, from Marianne to Ms.Hughes, from Richard to Jenna, might well be complicit.

He found himself returning to where he and Amelia had been separated.Something on the floor caught the light under his flashlight’s beam—a tiny scrap of white paper.He stooped, picking it up.A piece of a paper handkerchief, raggedly torn.Instantly, hope welled in him.Amelia had used a tactic like this once before, leaving small breadcrumbs if she was forced along.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, voice breaking with relief.He scanned the corridor.And yes—another scrap lay a few feet away, trailing further down.So she was conscious enough, or at least recently so, to leave him a sign.He nodded to the darkness with gratitude.Carefully, he followed the scraps, each piece of thin tissue reflecting in the small glow of his flashlight.

The hush of the house added to the tension as he moved deeper into the labyrinth of hallways.Footsteps echoing, he advanced to a short flight of stairs that climbed to the next level.The scraps formed an uneven line up the steps.He counted them carefully, ensuring he missed none.Each sign reaffirmed that Amelia was trying to guide him.But how far had they taken her?

At the top of the stairs, the corridor branched.He panned his flashlight left and right, spotting more torn pieces leading left.He carried on, the dryness in his mouth intensifying.The house seemed to exude a stale smell, like old dust and fear.After a final turn, the scraps stopped outside a heavy oak door Finn recognized as James Penrose’s study.The same place he had first encountered the masked intruder.

He heard hushed voices inside.Immediately, adrenaline spiked in his veins.One voice belonged to Jenna Penrose, if he wasn’t mistaken.The other was deeper—Richard, James’s youngest sibling.A coil of fury and concern twisted in his chest.They might have Amelia in there.He eased closer, pressing his ear to the door.Inside, he caught fragments:

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