Page 38 of Buried Secrets

Fourteen steps down, they reached the basement corridor. The door to the records room stood ajar. Blackened patches still marked the far wall, where the flames had climbed highest, and the acrid smell of burnt paper and wood lingered beneath the mustier scent of damp stone.

Jasper stepped aside, allowing Kaitlin to enter first. She hesitated at the threshold, memories of smoke and fear washing over her. The shadow moving beyond the flames. The desperate race to save irreplaceable documents.

“You coming?” Jasper’s voice, rough as gravel, startled her from her thoughts.

“Yes, sorry.” Kaitlin moved into the room, scanning the partially emptied shelves. “It should be along the back wall, third cabinet from the left.”

She picked her way carefully between stacks of boxes, heading toward the far corner where the personnel records had been stored. The fire had largely spared this section, though water damage from the fire fighters had left dark stains spreading across some of the cardboard containers.

Behind her, Jasper’s heavy tread followed at a measured pace. Kaitlin tried to focus on the task at hand, but unwelcome thoughts intruded with each step. This man had worked at the mansion during the years in question. He’d been here when those women, whose remains now rested in the medical examiner’s lab, had disappeared. Had his massive hands dug the graves that concealed them for decades? It would have been an easy task for him.

The third cabinet stood partially open, its contents in disarray. Kaitlin knelt before it, scanning the labeled spines of bound records. “It should be here somewhere,” she murmured, half to herself.

The basement’s chill seeped through her thin sweater as she searched, heightening her awareness of Jasper’s presence behind her. The silence stretched uncomfortably, broken only by the rustle of papers and the distant creak of the old house settling.

“This might be it,” she said eventually, sliding a water-stained volume from the bottom shelf. The label was partially obscured, but the date range looked correct.

She turned to show Jasper, only to find the space behind her empty. Frowning, she rose to her feet and peered around a tall shelving unit. “Jasper?”

No response.

Kaitlin clutched the ledger to her chest, suddenly aware of how alone she was in the cavernous basement. Had he gone back upstairs? She hadn’t heard his footsteps retreat.

“Jasper?” she called again, louder this time.

The heavy door to the records room swung shut with a decisive click.

Kaitlin’s heart leapt into her throat. She spun toward the sound, eyes widening as Jasper’s silhouette appeared in front of the closed door. Something metallic in his right hand caught the dim light. The claw end of a hammer.

Her mouth went dry. The corner where she stood felt suddenly like a trap—shelves on two sides, Jasper blocking the only exit (the only window had been boarded shut), and stone walls too thick for anyone to hear if she screamed for help.

He took a step forward, hammer raised.

“Jasper,” she managed, her voice strangled with fear. “I found the records. We can go back upstairs now.”

Another step. His eyes weren’t on her face but focused on something just past her shoulder.

The ledger slipped from Kaitlin’s fingers as primal terror took hold. She pressed back against the shelves, trapped with nowhere to run as Jasper advanced. Words failed her, replaced by the certainty that she’d been right to fear this man, that she was about to become another secret buried on the mansion grounds.

A soft, sinister rattling sound came from somewhere to her right.

Jasper raised the hammer higher.

Kaitlin screamed, the sound tearing from her throat as she threw her arms up in a futile gesture of self-protection. Jasper lunged forward.

But instead of striking her, the hammer whistled past her head and connected with something behind the shelf with a sickening thud. A violent thrashing sound followed, then another heavy blow.

Trembling, Kaitlin lowered her arms enough to see Jasper pull something long and sinuous from behind the cabinet. A snake. Its dark body still writhed despite a crushed head.

“Timber rattler,” Jasper said, holding the serpent up by its tail. “Poisonous.”

Kaitlin’s knees buckled as relief and residual terror collided. She caught herself against the shelving unit, heart hammering painfully against her ribs.

“A snake,” she whispered. “It was just a snake.”

Jasper studied her pale face with something that might have been concern. “You thought I was going to hurt you.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact delivered in his rumbling monotone. Shame washed over Kaitlin, hot on the heels of her fear.