Page 72 of One Touch

Please don’t be an issue with joists or rotted subfloor. We really,reallydon’t need that kind of setback.

Beckett removed several sections of flooring until a large square was visible in the subfloor. On one side was a latch.

“What the hell is that?” I asked.

He looked around the space, orienting himself. “It looks like a trapdoor.” He pointed to the wall. “It would have been covered by the closet space we borrowed from the back bedroom there. Then, at some point, someone added the flooring over the top.” His frown deepened. “Hang on.”

Beckett stood and stomped out of the room. My eyes traced the four sides of the possible door. He returned with blueprints in hand. He unrolled the yellowed paper in front of us.

“These are some of the original plans that your family maintained.” He pointed to the sketches and faded architectural plans. “This could be an old well from a basement offshoot ...”

I shook my head. “The house doesn’t have a basement.”

He looked at me. “Exactly.”

My mind raced. “Maybe a root cellar or something?”

He nodded. “Could be.” In the air his finger traced the outline of the rectangle. “Seems really big for a cellar opening, though.”

Beckett flipped through several pages of plans, many of which had been changed or updated throughout the home’s many, many years.

“We should open it,” I announced.

Beckett quietly studied the floor beneath us.

“Come on ... it probably is an old cellar. Maybe someone hid a duffel full of money in there!”

He frowned. “Or a dead body.”

A nervous laugh shot out of me. Beckett looked around. “I don’t know what we’re going to find in there, if anything. More than likely it’s an empty space and a waste of our time, but I don’t want to open up something that someone went to these lengths to conceal. It’s probably nothing, but we need to talk with your aunt first to see if she has any knowledge of what this could be.”

I sighed. “Fun-ruiner.”

He lowered his chin to stare at me. “Safety. First.”

I rolled my eyes and snapped a picture of the trapdoor before dialing my aunt’s phone number.

* * *

“It probably is a dead body.”

“Tootie!” I scolded, staring at my aunt as she, Beckett, and I stood staring down at the trapdoor. Once I’d called her to ask about the mysterious door, she’d immediately come over.

“I’m guessing it’s a crawl space to access plumbing or electrical. Most likely this is a waste of our time.” Annoyance laced in Beckett’s voice, but there was something else there, too, a subtle hint of uncertainty, that had excited energy buzzing through my veins.

Tootie would never miss out on being the first to know something—especially something as exciting and cryptic as a hidden door. A door that she claimed she had zero knowledge of.

From what she could recall, and that we could confirm with the plans that Beckett had, the addition of the back bedroom and entryway had been completed sometime in the mid-1930s.

We could assume the addition to the farmhouse was due to a growing family, but then why would the door exist, only to be covered over? It didn’t make sense.

“Only one way to find out.” Beckett lowered to his knees and wedged the pry bar between the small gap in the flooring. With a hard yank, the wood groaned and came free.

Carefully, Beckett stood and folded back the door, revealing what had been hidden underneath.

Stairs.

I peered into the darkness. “What the actual fuck?”

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