Chapter 8 - The Chapel Door
The kidnapping of Penelope transformed the investigation into a national emergency.
Federal agents sealed roads, airports, and railway stations.
Daria had anticipated all of it.
She never intended to leave Kincaid property.
The family chapel stood on a wooded hill beyond the mansion's western boundary, technically owned by a historical trust and therefore absent from the first search warrant.
Catherine watched the video repeatedly.
She studied the stone behind Daria, the angle of the candlelight, and the rhythm of a mechanical hum beneath the audio.
"She is not in the chapel."
Ortiz paused the recording.
"The walls match."
"The visible walls match."
Catherine pointed to a line of moisture near the floor.
"The chapel is heated. That room is underground."
Samuel remembered a crypt beneath the altar.
It had been sealed after Daria's infant daughter was buried at Saint Orison.
The chapel records listed no lower chamber.
Arthur knew of one.
During renovations thirty years earlier, workers had discovered an older tunnel connecting the crypt to Kincaid House.
Daria ordered it closed and paid the workers to remain silent.
"She built her archive there," Catherine said.
The archive she had seen in the photograph was not behind the chapel wall.
It was beneath it.
Ortiz planned a tactical entry through the main doors while Samuel and Catherine used the tunnel.
Catherine refused body armor because it restricted her movement.
Samuel insisted.
"I lost you once."
"You did not lose me."
She fastened the vest herself.
"I was taken. Learn the difference."
The words were not cruel.
They were necessary.
Samuel finally understood that Catherine did not need him to rescue her.
She needed him to stand beside her without taking away her choices.
The tunnel entrance lay behind a wine rack in the mansion cellar.
They entered after midnight with Arthur guiding them through a radio.
The passage narrowed until Samuel had to turn sideways.
Catherine moved ahead because she remembered the smell of the underground rooms from Daria's coat after visits to Blackthorn.
At the end of the tunnel, they found a steel door secured by a keypad.
Samuel guessed family dates.
None worked.
Catherine entered the date printed on Penelope's forged death certificate.
The lock opened.
Daria had planned the infant's death before Catherine gave birth.
Inside, shelves held decades of ledgers, photographs, medical files, and recorded conversations.
Samuel saw his own childhood arranged in labeled boxes.
Daria had documented everyone.
Every weakness.
Every affair.
Every debt.
Every secret.
She had not built a family.
She had built an intelligence network around people who believed they loved her.
A baby cried beyond the next wall.
Catherine moved toward the sound.
Samuel caught her hand.
A thin wire crossed the doorway at ankle height.
The room was trapped.
They stepped over it and entered the crypt chamber.
Penelope lay in a portable crib beside the altar.
Lucian remained tied to the chair.
Daria stood behind him with a syringe pressed against his neck.
"I knew you would bring her," Daria told Samuel.
"Let the child go."
"The child is the only honest person in this family. She wants nothing except warmth and food."
Catherine's eyes never left Penelope.
"Then give her to me."
"Hand me the will."
Samuel held up the leather case.
"First, release Lucian."
Daria laughed.
"Arthur's bastard spent twenty years imagining himself a prince. He should enjoy the final minutes of the fantasy."
Lucian looked at Samuel.
"The letters were fake."
"I know."
"I am sorry."
Daria pressed the needle harder.
"How touching."
Catherine took one slow step toward the crib.
Daria pointed a pistol at her.
"Stop."
The tactical team breached the chapel above.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Daria did not flinch.
"You brought them through the front."
"You expected us to," Catherine said.
A second team entered through the tunnel behind Samuel.
Daria pulled the trigger.
The pistol clicked.
Catherine had switched the magazine in the cemetery struggle when she tore Daria's coat.
Daria stared at the useless weapon.
Samuel rushed her.
She drove the syringe into Lucian's shoulder instead.
Lucian convulsed.
Catherine lifted Penelope from the crib while agents restrained Daria.
A medic injected Lucian with an antidote found in Weston's emergency kit.
His heart stopped for forty-two seconds.
Then it began beating again.
Daria lay facedown on the stone floor in handcuffs.
She turned her head toward Catherine.
"You think this ends because you found the child."
Catherine held Penelope tightly.
"No."
Her voice was steady.
"It ends because we found your archive."
May you like
Daria smiled against the floor.
"Then you should look in the red box labeled Samuel."
