Chapter 2 - THE ROOM BEHIND THE POOL
Adrian blocked Vanessa from leaving the terrace while the house manager called emergency services. He did not touch her again. Graham attempted to stand, saw Adrian watching him and stayed beside the wrecked chair. Mia sat wrapped in a towel with a member of the household staff beside her. She kept looking toward the wall, frightened that the trapped man might stop answering.
The first responders arrived within minutes. Paramedics examined Mia for complications from the submersion and recommended hospital observation because she had coughed repeatedly after being pulled from the water. Adrian agreed, but he refused to leave until firefighters confirmed they had located Daniel Reyes.
The decorative opening connected to an old ventilation channel for the pool’s underground service gallery. The gallery had been sealed from the outside during renovation, with normal access through a locked pump room at the rear of the property. According to the mansion’s maintenance plans, the gallery was no longer in active use.
Someone had been using it.
Firefighters forced the service door and found Daniel sitting against a concrete wall, dehydrated and shaking. He had a bruised shoulder, a split lip and a length of electrical cable wrapped around one wrist. Nearby lay a toolbox with the lid torn from its hinges. A portable work light illuminated an open wall panel containing network cables and a small equipment cabinet.
Daniel looked at Adrian and immediately asked, “Is the little girl okay?”
“She’s alive.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“I heard her screaming.”
Adrian helped him stand before paramedics took over. “Who locked you in?”
Daniel looked toward the terrace.
“The man in the gray suit.”
Graham.
Adrian asked why he had been in the gallery. Daniel said Vanessa called his company for an emergency inspection after reporting irregular pressure in the pool system. When he arrived, she directed him to the old pump room rather than the active equipment shed. Graham was already waiting inside.
They asked him to inspect a network cabinet that supposedly controlled the pool’s automated cover.
Daniel recognized immediately that the cabinet had nothing to do with the cover. It contained equipment connected to the mansion’s security network and external data storage.
He photographed it.
Graham saw him.
The rest happened quickly. Graham took Daniel’s phone, struck him during the struggle and locked him behind the reinforced service door. Vanessa told him to remain silent until they decided what to do.
“Why didn’t you call the police?” Adrian asked.
Daniel held up his damaged wrist.
“They took my phone. There’s no signal in there.”
Mia had found him because she dropped her blue bracelet beside the wall while playing. The bracelet slid beneath a loose stone, and when she reached after it, Daniel heard her moving outside. He called through the ventilation opening. She leaned close enough to hear him.
He told her to find Adrian.
Vanessa arrived before Mia could reach the house.
That explained the attack.
Mia had become a witness.
Adrian looked toward the pool, where his daughter’s small bracelet still lay beneath the loose stone.
Daniel gripped his arm.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The cabinet. It has your name on it.”
Adrian frowned.
“My name?”
Daniel nodded.
“Your company’s network label. MERCER HOLDINGS—PRIVATE ARCHIVE.”
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Adrian’s corporate servers were supposed to be in Manhattan.
Not hidden beneath his swimming pool.
