Chapter 3 - DISCOVERY IN THE DARK
"Adrian, get back!" Anna cried out, her voice shaking as she backed away toward the bed frame.
Adrian didn't move away. He leaned forward over the lifted edge of the oak panel, his heart hammering wildly against his ribs. He placed his fingers beneath the raised lip of the hidden board and pulled upward with all his strength.
SCREEECH.
The hidden panel swung open on two concealed iron hinges, exposing a dark, narrow utility cavity hidden directly between the ceiling joists of the lower floor and the suite’s hardwood subfloor. The space was barely two feet deep, filled with stale, suffocating air, yellowed insulation, and scattered scraps of ancient cotton padding.
Lying on her side in the dark recess was Evelyn.
She was thirty-three years old, but her thin, exhausted face looked weathered by years of trauma. Her long brown hair was wildly tangled, matted with grey dust and dry wood shavings. Wrapped around her emaciated frame were the ruined, dirty, and torn remains of the identical million-dollar ivory wedding dress she had worn on the morning of her disappearance three years ago.
Adrian stared into the dark opening, completely stunned, his mind paralyzed by the impossibility of what his eyes were seeing.
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"Evelyn...?" Adrian gasped, his voice breaking into a dry sob. "Evelyn... my God..."
The woman lying in the dark shadow slowly raised her head. Her sunken brown eyes adjusted to the sudden, brilliant beam of sunlight streaming through the stained-glass window, locking onto Adrian’s face with a painful, overwhelming intensity.
