Chapter 3 - ECHOES OF THE PAST
By midnight, the triplets were sleeping soundly in a temporary nursery set up in the west wing of the mansion, far away from the north wall. The police had been notified, but Julian had also brought in his personal private security firm, led by Marcus Vance, a former intelligence officer.
Marcus inspected the wiring leading down into the floorboards. “This isn't an amateur job, Julian. This pulse device is specialized hardware, often used in counter-surveillance or industrial harassment. But more importantly, the cable doesn't stop at the subfloor. It runs down through an abandoned utility shaft.”
Julian’s estate, built in the late 1920s and renovated by his development firm two years prior, had a rich and dark history. It originally belonged to the Sterling family, real estate moguls who had dominated Connecticut finance before crashing into sudden, mysterious bankruptcy thirty years ago.
Julian went straight to his private study and pulled up the original architectural blueprints of the estate alongside the modern renovation plans.
As he compared the digital files on his monitor, his sharp analytical mind picked up a major discrepancy.
“Look here,” Julian pointed at the screen for Marcus. “When we renovated the lower levels last year, my head architect flagged an structural offset in the basement floor plan. According to the 1928 blueprints, there was a 500-square-foot sub-basement underneath the north wing—a reinforced vault room built during the Prohibition era.”
“And what does the modern blueprint show?” Marcus asked.
“It shows solid concrete,” Julian replied. “My former Chief Structural Engineer, Arthur Pendelton, signed off on the renovation documents stating that the sub-basement had been filled with solid cement back in 1980.”
Julian opened his corporate database to cross-reference the work logs. His heart skipped a beat.
Arthur Pendelton hadn't filled that room with cement. The records showed a massive budget allocation for 'foundation stabilization' six months ago—right around the time the nursery was being constructed. Someone had spent over $400,000 to quietly restore access to that underground vault without registering it in the official estate records.
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Julian turned to Marcus. “The person who installed that device in my children’s room didn't just want to hurt my family. They needed us out of the north wing so they could access whatever is hidden in that vault beneath the floor.”
At that moment, the lights in Julian’s study flickered violently once, then went completely dark.
