Page 181 of Broken Omega

It’s probably unlikely that Warren Corvina didn’t make it home due to a horrible accident, but a guy can dream. It’s hours after he was supposed to get back when I find my way into the basement of his house. His study was the only vaguely interesting room on the ground floor, and even then, it was only of any real interest because of what I found in the desk’s drawers.

The rest of the house was expensively bland. Barely lived in, and with virtually no personal items laying around to tell any kind of story about the owner.

Clearly, his work is his life.

That I can believe.

It would make sense to go find a hiding spot in his study. He’ll retreat there when he gets home. I doubt he spends much time in any of the other rooms in this place.

Yet, my instincts tell me there’s something more important in the basement.

It was the only other locked door on the ground floor of the house, and I got it open the same way I got into his study. The lowest level of the house shows no sign of being touched by the staff who keep the ground floor clean. The stair railing is dusty, and half the lightbulbs don’t seem to be working. I walk by a couple of burnt-out bulbs, and another flickers above me as I move past the empty corner section the stairs led me down into.

The middle section of the basement seems to exist for the sole purpose of storing wine. Racks housing hundreds of dust-covered bottles stretch out across the entire length of the room. There are boxes scattered across the floor in front of some of the filled racks. I check on a few bottles and discover the wine has been organized by year.

Moving past the racks, I reach a storage area.

Whatever brought me down here is contained here.

I look through the boxes, knowing the stuff that’s been put in most of them means less than nothing to Warren. The pictures, clothes and ornaments look like they belonged to a woman. While I can believe the man who lives here would box up everything that belonged to his wife when she died, I seriously doubt he’d keep anything of hers for any reason other than to hide something amongst the clutter.

I check through everything, becoming so absorbed that I realize I’ve stopped listening out for noises from the floor above. Probably should have ignored the instinct that brought me down here. I’m losing track of time and I haven’t found anything discriminating for my efforts.

If I’d hoped there might be something worse than the evidence I already passed on to Donnie and River to take to the police, my hopes have been dashed.

I still don’t understand why Warren would keep the belongings of the woman he married, but whatever he’s using them to hide, it’s been well concealed.

Sitting down, I take out my phone.

I take off a glove to unlock the screen, and the sudden illumination of the floor to my right makes me wonder if Warren might be hiding something under the boxes, instead of amongst them. The ground is concrete, but I just saw what looks like the corner of a hatch.

I get to my feet, push the boxes back, and keep the light shining on the floor.

When the square hatch is revealed beneath, I can’t help but smile.

This is what I came down here to find.

Whatever’s on the other side of this hatch is better than the evidence we already gave the cops.

There’s a padlock, but the metal’s rusted on the chain it’s attached to.

A couple good, hard yanks and the chain breaks.

I set the lock to the side and open the hatch.

The space inside is small, it’s literally the size of the hatch’s door, and probably around the same depth, and all it contains is a wooden box that’s only slightly smaller than the space it occupies.

Dampness has made the wood expand. I can’t get the lid to open until I get a fire poker out of one of the boxes and pry the corners up. It cracks a little, but I get to my prize.

“Holy fucking shit.”

BROOKE

Iknow this is the calm before the storm, the moment of peace before my life is turned upside down and inside out. My father is an unstoppable force. He’s ready to push me into a situation I have no control over, but I can’t say that’s any different from what he’s done to me for the whole of my life.

I feel like I’m waiting on the edge of a cliff, trying to judge how jagged the rocks at the bottom are.

Will I survive, or will death be instant?

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