There's a sound a house makes when it's trying to hide something.
It's not a creak or a groan. It's quieter than that. A silence that feels...off. Too clean. Too still. Like breath held too long.
The East Wing of the mansion had always been like that. Pretty, symmetrical, pointless.
Until tonight.
Tonight it hums with something buried.
Eva's boots echo softly beside me as we walk through the corridor. The marble reflects distorted images of us — two women caught between shadows and secrets.
"You're sure it's here?" I whisper.
She nods without looking at me, her focus trained on the blinking dot on her tablet.
"Blueprints say there's no basement in this wing," she mutters. "Which means someone wanted it that way."
She stops in front of a wide arched wall between two dusty portraits of dead presidents.
"No door," I say.
She smiles. "Not yet."
Her fingers move fast over the screen. The dot pulses red.
Then: click.
Something hisses behind the panel.
