She set her glass on the marble countertop of the kitchen island and staggered through the people around her, through the dining room, and into the foyer. A stair hall led to a large study at the front of the home. She had intended to retreat there and wait for the assault of the words to be over, but another thought occurred to her then.
An opportunity.
The U-shaped stairway before her led to the bedrooms and rec room upstairs. A door beneath the landing opened to the stairs to the basement. Like Daniele, Elliott had the resources to dig a full basement. Adeline had been down there a few times, mostly at Christmas parties when the kids were relegated to the lower level where there was a game room with a pool table, arcade games, and a full home theater.
She gripped the door handle and it turned and she quickly slipped inside and descended the stairs. She was reminded of spying on the four scientists at Daniele’s home. But this time, she didn’t stop on the landing.
She kept going, out into the open game room. The door to the half bath stood open. So did the double doors to the theater. It was empty.
The far wall was almost entirely glass, and beyond was a cavernous wine cellar. There were only two other rooms in the basement. One was a mechanical space that Adeline had seen once. To her, it looked like the belly of a giant boat: there were air handlers and mechanical pumps, and through another glass wall, on a raised platform, a giant server room that ran the home automation system, window shades, security, whole-house audio, and probably stuff Adeline didn’t even know about.
The other door led to a home gym. Adeline had seen it once. Mirrors hung on the walls, and thick rubber covered the concrete floor. There were no windows.
And something had been added to the wall beside the door to the gym since her last visit here: a touchscreen panel.
Adeline tapped it. A menu came up for the home automation system. The door handle had no keyhole, but it was locked.
She navigated the system until she came to the screen for a room named workout. It had a keyless entry option that showed a full keyboard. The code to open the door was a series of letters.
Adeline listened for a moment, trying to determine if Elliott’s speech was over. If someone found her down here, she could always say she had felt overwhelmed and needed to get away. In this case, it was true.
But this was also an opportunity. One she likely wouldn’t soon see again.
What could the door code be?
Charlie was her first thought. But that was too obvious. What was a word no one would think of?
Adeline raised her finger to the panel and typed:
M
O
L
O
S
B
A
The door lock whined, gears grinding as the bolt receded. Adeline tried the handle. It turned. She swung the heavy wooden slab in and gasped at what she saw.
The mirrors on the wall were gone. In their place was a dark gray soundproof foam from floor to ceiling.
The rubber still spread out at her feet. The opposite wall was covered in photos of Charlie. In them, he was about Adeline’s age now—late teens or early twenties. He was strung out in most. Loitering outside nightclubs or on the deck at house parties, a drink in his hand and a cigarette dangling from his lips. Some photos had been taken from a distance, through closed windows, showing him in the living room or bathroom of a home or apartment, often consuming drugs or simply slouched in a chair or couch, listening or laughing.
Based on Charlie’s age in the photos—and the fact that he was wearing the same clothes—they appeared to have all been taken around the same time, in the days leading up to his death, which had hit Elliott hard.
The last time Adeline had seen Charlie had been at his family’s Christmas party that year. He hadn’t been himself then. There was an edge to him, an anger underneath everything that even crept into his infectious laugh. He had been mad at the world.
As she turned that memory over in her mind, Adeline had to admit that she felt herself standing on that precipice. She wondered if she would descend into the abyss of blame and bitterness too. Probably. If she didn’t get answers—and justice—soon.
On the left-hand wall was a bank of computer screens playing videos. Most were from home security cameras. They displayed the street or the alley beside the home or the backyard. In each video, Charlie was walking back to his apartment.
Other videos were from mobile phones, the scenes showing a house party that raged into the night, one Charlie had attended.
In one of the videos playing in a rectangle near the bottom of the screen, Adeline saw something that made her jaw drop: Daniele. She was walking down the same street Charlie was trudging across in the other videos. The timestamp said she was only an hour behind him.