Chapter 7 - BREACHING SUITE 12
“Move, move, move!” Vance yelled, breaking into a full sprint across the courtyard toward the exterior staircase of the North Wing.
Miller mirrored his movements, drawing his service weapon as they vaulted up the concrete steps to the second floor. They didn't bother knocking. Vance threw his shoulder against the wooden door of Suite 12 with explosive force.
CRACK.
The deadbolt splintered, and the door swung wide open, slamming against the interior drywall.
The apartment was suffocatingly hot, smelling of industrial cleaning supplies and stale tobacco. The officers swept through the living room, their flashlights cutting through the gloom. The kitchen was spotless, the bedroom empty.
But as Miller approached the rear utility closet, he noticed a heavy padlock hanging open from a floor-access panel half-hidden beneath a braided rug.
“Vance, over here!” Miller called out, kneeling down and pulling the rug back.
It was a hidden wooden trapdoor leading down into the building’s old abandoned maintenance shaft—a subterranean crawlspace that connected the entire foundation of the complex, running directly beneath the basement where they had found the mother's purse.
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From somewhere deep within the dark opening beneath the floorboards came a faint, muffled sound.
A cough.
