Chapter 5 - The Locked Cellar
The cold concrete floor was damp and smelled of diesel fuel, rotting wood, and wet earth.
I woke up with a split lip and a blinding pain throbbing behind my temples, my wrists bound tightly behind my back with heavy plastic zip-ties.
I was locked inside an abandoned drainage basement beneath the old rail yard, thirty feet below ground level.
A single naked bulb dangled from a rusted conduit overhead, casting yellow, flickering light across the puddles.
Sitting on a wooden crate across from me was Vivian Shaw, wearing an ivory cashmere coat and a pair of leather driving gloves.
Beside her stood Chloe Barrett, who was nervously chewing her thumbnail while pacing back and forth near the locked iron door.
"Did you really think a little waitress could outsmart me, sweetheart?" Vivian asked, tapping the heels of her designer boots together.
"You should have taken Damian’s three hundred dollars and bought your textbooks like a good little peasant."
"He loved you," I spat, tasting copper on my tongue as I glared up at her through my tangled hair.
"He built a nursery with his own hands! He stayed awake wondering if the vitamins were safe for the baby!"
Vivian let out a sharp, mocking laugh that echoed off the damp stone walls.
"The nursery was a lovely touch, wasn't it? I’m turning it into a walk-in shoe closet the second the estate probate clears."
"What did you tell him?" I whispered, fighting the panic rising in my throat.
"Where does he think you are?"
"I told him I was having mild Braxton Hicks contractions and resting at my sister’s home in Lake Forest," Vivian smiled, leaning down so her face was inches from mine.
"He sent three flower arrangements and ordered the private jet prepped for the Bahamas on Saturday morning."
"The yacht accident," I said, remembering what I had overheard in the powder room.
"The charter yacht will suffer an electrical engine fire forty miles off the coast of Nassau," Vivian whispered with sickening pride.
"Damian will drown trying to rescue his pregnant bride. I will be heroically plucked from a life raft by Roman’s private security boat, mourning the tragic loss of my heroic husband and our unborn child."
"And then you inherit forty percent of the voting shares under the prenuptial survivor clause," I finished, my voice trembling with hatred.
"Fifty percent, actually," Vivian corrected me, standing up and smoothing her coat over the silicone belly beneath her blouse.
"Chloe, make sure she stays down here until Friday night. Once the wedding vows are registered at the cathedral, turn the water valve on and let the drainage pipe fill the floor. Nobody looks for runaway waitresses in Chicago."
Vivian turned toward the heavy iron door, her heels clicking sharply against the stone steps.
"Goodbye, Maya. You would have made a terrible nurse anyway. You care far too much about people who are already dead."
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The heavy metal door slammed shut with a deafening boom, followed by the grinding sound of a heavy padlock clicking into place.
I was left alone in the dark, with the slow, rhythmic dripping of canal water echoing in the freezing cold.
