The Nursery Behind the Wall

Chapter 01 - The Nursery Behind the Wall

The explosion struck while Clara Hayes was pressing a silk evening gown.

The iron jumped beneath her hand.

Dust fell from the laundry-room ceiling, and the lights blinked out before returning in a weak amber glow.

For one foolish second she waited for thunder.

Then she heard gunfire upstairs.

Clara stepped back against the washing machine.

The drum was still turning, buttons clicking softly against metal.

An ordinary sound.

That was what frightened her most.

Somebody screamed above her.

Then stopped.

Her first thought was the basement delivery entrance.

Twenty-eight steps down the service corridor.

Left at the freezer.

Steel door.

Across the hedge to the gardener’s road.

She knew the path.

Her mother was in a rehabilitation hospital in Providence waiting for surgery Clara’s paycheck helped make possible.

Running was not cowardice.

Running was survival.

Then Oliver began to cry.

Even through two floors and thick plaster, Clara knew the sound.

Oliver started loud, as if every disappointment were betrayal.

Owen usually woke afterward and complained more quietly.

Tonight he did.

Two six-month-old boys calling from the nursery.

Clara closed her eyes.

“Damn it.”

She took off her work shoes.

The servants’ staircase was narrower and less exposed than the main hall.

She climbed in stocking feet.

Halfway up, another burst of gunfire struck somewhere near the front foyer.

Men shouted.

Not guards.

Wrong voices.

Clara reached the upper landing and eased the door open.

The master corridor stretched toward the river side of the Costello mansion.

At the far end, Victoria Costello stood beside her bedroom safe.

She wore a red silk robe over an evening dress.

A leather travel bag sat open on the bed.

Inside were velvet jewelry boxes.

Cash.

Passports.

Briggs, one of the remaining security men, caught Victoria by the elbow.

“The boys are still upstairs.”

Victoria pulled away.

“Then get them.”

“I’m taking you through the east passage.”

“They’re coming through that side.”

Gunfire cracked below.

Victoria flinched.

A jewelry box slipped from her hand.

She crouched to pick it up.

Briggs stared at her.

“We can still reach the nursery.”

“The boat is waiting.”

“The children—”

“Will slow us down.”

Clara’s fingers tightened around the service-door frame.

Briggs looked as if he had misheard.

“They’re six months old.”

Victoria shoved the jewelry box into the bag.

“And they won’t stop crying.”

Her voice remained low.

That was worse than panic.

“Damian can have more children.”

Clara felt something inside her go cold.

Briggs did not move.

Victoria zipped the bag.

“Are you coming?”

A door crashed somewhere below them.

A man shouted.

Briggs looked once toward the nursery corridor.

Then followed Victoria toward the private staircase leading to the dock.

Clara watched them disappear.

Oliver screamed again.

She ran.

The nursery’s main corridor was exposed.

The linen closet beside the servants’ stairs connected to the children’s bath through a narrow service door.

Clara slipped inside.

Passed shelves of monogrammed towels.

Opened the hidden latch.

Crossed the bathroom.

The nursery door stood six feet away.

She pushed through.

Oliver lay red-faced in the left crib.

Owen was awake in the right, hands opening and closing.

“I’m here.”

Her own voice shook.

She lifted Oliver against one shoulder.

Then Owen.

Two babies.

One adult body.

No free hands.

Footsteps sounded outside.

Clara looked toward the bathroom.

Too far.

Then the oak bookcase.

During renovations, an old carpenter named Mr. Duffy had shown her the warped seam behind it.

“Servants used to move coal and linens without crossing family rooms,” he had said.

“Whole house has veins.”

Clara had laughed.

Now she drove her shoulder against the frame.

Nothing.

Again.

The bookcase moved an inch.

Oliver cried harder.

“Please.”

She pushed with her hip.

The panel opened.

A black gap appeared.

Clara squeezed through sideways, one baby against each side of her chest.

The panel closed just as the nursery door crashed inward.

Through a split in the wood, she saw three men in dark clothing.

Faces partly covered.

One crossed to the cribs.

“Empty.”

Another checked the bathroom.

“Boat side?”

“Maybe.”

Oliver drew breath.

Clara tucked his face against the open collar of her uniform.

Not smothering.

Just skin.

Heartbeat.

Her hand supported his neck.

Owen pressed beneath her chin.

She rocked almost imperceptibly.

The first man turned toward the bookcase.

Clara stopped breathing.

He listened.

Then a voice from the hall said:

“They took them out the back.”

The man looked away.

“Burn the place.”

Footsteps retreated.

A sharp chemical odor entered through the wall seam.

Clara’s stomach dropped.

Smoke was not there yet.

But gasoline was.

She moved.

The passage was barely wider than her shoulders.

Old plaster scraped her arm.

The babies had gone strangely quiet.

Good.

Or frightening.

She checked their faces.

Breathing.

Warm.

Owen blinked at her as if this were merely a badly lit room.

“Stay mad at me later.”

She moved down the narrow internal stair.

One step.

Another.

Behind her, something whooshed.

Heat reached through the wood.

The wall passage forked at a landing.

Left descended toward the old wine cellar.

Right led toward an exterior vent above the conservatory.

Mr. Duffy had said one route collapsed decades ago.

Which?

Clara could not remember.

Smoke began seeping from above.

She chose right.

The passage narrowed.

Her shoulder struck a protruding nail.

Pain.

She kept moving.

Then Owen’s blanket snagged.

Clara stopped.

A corner had caught on a small iron hook in the wall.

She pulled carefully.

The blanket came free.

Something metallic fell.

Clink.

She could not bend properly with both babies.

Behind her the smoke thickened.

Leave it.

Then a faint reflection caught her eye.

A brass key.

Old.

A blue enamel tag attached.

L.C. - ARCHIVE.

Clara stared.

Lucia Costello?

Damian’s mother had been dead eleven years.

No time.

She pushed the key into her apron pocket and kept going.

The passage ended at a wooden grate.

Locked.

Of course.

Clara shifted Owen higher and shoved with one shoulder.

Nothing.

The heat behind her increased.

Oliver began crying again.

“I know.”

She kicked the lower panel.

Once.

Twice.

Wood cracked.

Cold rain hit her face.

She kicked again.

The panel broke outward into the ruined conservatory garden.

Clara stumbled through.

Glass roof overhead.

Rain.

Dark hedges.

Smoke curling from the mansion’s upper windows.

She ran barefoot across gravel.

The babies cried now.

Good.

Cry.

Breathe.

She reached the old chapel near the east wall and collapsed beneath the stone arch.

Her phone showed one bar.

She called 911.

“My name is Clara Hayes.”

She could barely speak.

“I’m at the Costello estate. There are two infants with me. The house is on fire. Men came inside.”

The dispatcher asked if she was injured.

“I don’t know.”

“Are the babies breathing?”

“Yes.”

“Stay away from the house.”

Clara looked back.

Flames moved behind the nursery windows.

A vehicle engine roared near the river.

Boat?

Maybe.

She pulled the babies beneath her apron and waited.

Fire engines arrived first.

Then police.

Then ambulances.

A paramedic took Oliver.

Clara refused to release Owen until the woman looked directly at her and said:

“I have him.”

Only then.

Her hands would not stop shaking.

Police asked where the parents were.

“Mr. Costello is in Boston.”

“And Mrs. Costello?”

Clara looked toward the river.

“She left.”

“With attackers?”

“No.”

“With security?”

“Yes.”

“Did she take the children?”

Clara laughed once.

It sounded wrong.

“No.”

Then she repeated Victoria’s sentence.

Damian can have more children.

The detective stared.

“Exactly?”

“Yes.”

Clara put both hands over her face.

The brass key dug into her apron pocket.

She had forgotten it.

Then a paramedic shouted from near the chapel steps.

“Ma’am, whose blood is this?”

Clara looked down.

Dark red across Owen’s blanket.

Her breath stopped.

The baby was unhurt.

The blood came from the blanket’s inside fold.

Not blood.

Ink.

A line of old red writing had bled through the damp fabric.

Clara stared.

The blanket was one of a pair sent by Damian’s aunt Beatrice for the twins’ christening.

Hand-embroidered.

Cream wool.

Inside the hem, rain had loosened a hidden strip of paper.

The paramedic helped unfold it.

Three words.

IF THE HOUSE BURNS.

Below them:

USE LUCIA’S KEY.

Clara touched the brass key in her pocket.

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The mansion behind her was burning.

And someone had prepared for this night years before the twins were born.