Chapter 5 - The Service Tunnel
The old Mercer estate—built in the roaring twenties by rum-runners and later acquired by the Duca family—was honeycombed with archaic service tunnels designed for discreet deliveries and illicit escapes.
Using an iron skeleton key found hanging on a brass ring behind the archive’s master ledger, Lorenzo unlocked a heavy, iron-plated door at the back of the underground vault. It opened into a narrow, brick-lined tunnel that sloped upward toward the main mansion’s basement kitchens.
"Can you walk, or do I need to drag you?" I whispered, keeping one hand on Emma’s small shoulder as she trotted beside us, holding her one-eyed rabbit like a trusted general leading a march.
"I can walk," Lorenzo ground out, his face pale as paper, his boots scraping softly against the damp brick floor.
The tunnel was pitch black save for the beam of a small pocket flashlight I had found on the archive desk. The air grew warmer as we advanced, eventually carrying the faint, familiar scents of industrial dish soap, bleach, and roasting garlic from the mansion’s commercial kitchens.
We reached the end of the tunnel, where a heavy wooden panel disguised as a pantry shelving unit blocked our exit.
I pressed my ear against the wood.
Silence.
Carefully, I slid the panel outward just an inch. The industrial kitchen was empty, bathed in the pale blue glow of moonlight streaming through the high transom windows. The stainless steel counters gleamed, and a single half-empty coffee mug sat beside the industrial espresso machine.
"Clear," I whispered, pushing the shelf open wide enough for Emma to slip through first.
The toddler scurried out like a quiet little mouse, her canvas sneakers making no sound on the tiled floor. Lorenzo followed, his boots dragging slightly before he caught his balance against the metal prep table.
"Where to?" I asked, pulling the pantry door shut behind us.
"The executive suite on the third floor," Lorenzo replied, pressing a hand to his bandaged side where fresh blood was beginning to seep through the linen rags. "My private office has a direct fiber-optic uplink to the federal financial network that bypasses the estate’s main router. If Julian has locked me out of the local network, that’s the only terminal he hasn't compromised."
"Third floor means passing the grand staircase and the west gallery," I warned. "Security guards are stationed at every major landing."
"Not if we take the dumbwaiter," Lorenzo said, nodding toward a heavy oak service hatch set into the brick wall near the walk-in refrigerator.
I stared at the small wooden box suspended by heavy steel cables. "Mr. Duca, I am a trained nurse and a certified estate housekeeper, but I am not a circus acrobat. That lift is meant for silver platters and laundry baskets."
"It holds three hundred pounds," he said, pulling the heavy brass latch. "We weigh less than that combined. Get in."
Ten minutes later, crammed into a space roughly the size of a telephone booth with a towering mob boss and a three-year-old child holding a stuffed rabbit, I learned what true humiliation felt like.
With agonizing slowness, pulling on the braided hemp rope inside the shaft, Lorenzo hoisted us upward through three stories of dark, echoing masonry until the lift bumped gently against the third-floor service stop.
I pushed the wooden hatch open and tumbled out onto a plush Persian rug, dragging Emma behind me before hauling Lorenzo out by his good arm.
We had made it to the executive wing.
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Now came the hard part.
The door to Lorenzo’s private office was locked, and a pair of armed guards were stationed less than twenty feet away at the end of the mahogany-paneled corridor.
