Chapter 248 - Home invasion (2/2)
Poseidon shrugged, ”Actually my mother was quite the lovely woman... my father on the other hand... Besides, you said no animals, though I have to say young girls can resemble animals from time to time...” He shook his head as he turned his attention to Russ and lifted his hand once again.
”Wait!” Russ called out, but his voice shifted and broke as he said it. He squeezed his eyes together. ”Please, just tell me I'm at the very least still human...”
The girl stomped past the other two toward the hole. ”Sure, you two get to stay male while I'm stuck with this shit!” She huffed out as she shoved the dress out of her way. Glaring back at them, Ry asked. ”Well, are you coming?”
”Well, you heard HER... let's get moving...” Poseidon said as he walked toward the hole.
Russ shook his head as he looked over his toddler body of no more than five. ”Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm not a dog again but still... why children?”
Poseidon flipped his tiny, chubby wrist and produced a flashlight. ”Several reasons... One, it will make these passages easy enough to navigate, especially if they get narrower anywhere. Two, if we are caught, we can plea innocence. Which, I should add, if we are caught try to sound like a child... Ry...”
Ry rolled his eyes. ”Yeah, I'm sure it will be perfectly believable three random children got lost in the f.u.c.k.i.n.g walls in the middle of the night...”
Poseidon shrugged his narrow shoulders. ”Who knows as bad as this place has gotten...”
”You may have a point there...” Ry said coming to a stop at an intersection. ”Alright which way?” He stepped aside and pointed. ”Left, right, or creepy a.s.s hole?”
Poseidon stepped to the edge of the hole and pointed the flashlight downward. ”There's a ladder leading down, and it looks like a much wider walkway down there.” He looked overhead and pointed the flashlight up. ”Looks like it goes all the way up as well.”
Russ stepped up beside them. ”So... down? I mean if we're looking for tunnels leading to the ocean it would be down, right?”
Poseidon nodded. ”Yeah... if there's a path down there that leads farther down maybe... But that should only be the ground floor.” He handed the flashlight over to Ry as he began down the ladder.
Russ was the last down the ladder. His eyes moved around the wider, taller walkways. ”Wow, it's hard to believe this is here...”
Poseidon nodded, fl.i.c.k.i.n.g his wrist to produce Russ's phone. ”Here, pull the floor plan up. If I had to guess I'd say that is the main stairs over there.” He pointed to a wide area in the dark passageway.
Ry walked over to where Poseidon had pointed. ”There's another door just over here. What is below here?”
Russ zoomed in on the floor plan as he followed Poseidon to where Ry stood. ”According to this, there's a storage area that's separate from the main bas.e.m.e.nt... directly above it should be one of the offices or a library... Does this palace have a library? I don't know... it's kinda hard to make out what these things should be based on an old a.s.s floor plan...”
Poseidon pressed a hand to the knob causing it to open. To his surprise, it wasn't as pitch dark as the rest of the passageway had been. There were tiny lights built-in along the slender spiral stairs as far as they could see in both directions. He clicked off the flashlight. ”Well, that's convenient...” He was just about to step out onto the stairs when voices echoed from below. He took a step back pressing his hands against Russ and Ry. ”We have company.” He whispered.
Ry tugged at the front of the dress. ”I thought that's why we're dressed like this?!” He growled as he stepped past his father's child-sized body.
Poseidon shrugged. ”I mean, do you want to risk spending the night in whatever hell is in that bas.e.m.e.nt? You were the one who said you suspect him of human trafficking... You make an exceptionally believable girl.” Ry's lips tightened closed as he stepped back away from the room. ”That's what I thought.” He closed the door and pressed his hand to it once again. He turned and placed his hands on both Russ and Ry and within a blink, they were back in Cam's old room. ”Push the dresser back for tonight. We'll go back to the cottage tonight and work out a better plan... There has to be some information on those passages. If Cam thought to cover them with wallpaper she's bound to have been inside them at some point.”
”And if she's been inside them, she's bound to have written about it.” Russ finished.
”Exactly!” Poseidon said. With another blink, they were back in the cottage. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to see if any texts had come through while they'd been gone. Seeing one from Chary, he quickly opened it.
”I can't believe you guys consider this a cottage... Usually, when someone says beach cottage, a little one-bedroom shack comes to mind. This thing is bigger than any of the apartments we ever rented.” Russ said as he snooped around the expansive living room. ”How many rooms are in this thing? Did you build it yourselves?”
Ry chuckled as he looked around himself. It had been a while since he'd been there. ”There are three bedrooms, two with balconies upstairs; a study overlooking the south end of the beach; and this open combo area. It wasn't always this big. When we first built it, back when we were training Jos, it was only one main room.” He pointed toward the large open kitchen with a long bar separating it from the living room. ”It used to only be that room, pretty much. There was a small kitchen with a tub over there by the fireplace.” He pointed to the small seating area nearest the door. ”That was the full extent of any living room, and right behind it was the bed.” He shrugged. ”It was cozy though... Arei had contractors come out some years ago to build on to it, then not too long ago had it renovated. Neither of us has spent much time here since it was first built, but Peg and Andy come here from time to time. Tri stays here when he's forced to be in the area for extended periods.” His attention moved back to his father, who was now on the phone.
”Hold on, let me put you on speaker.” As he tapped the controls on the phone, he explained. ”They have found what we're looking for. Go ahead finish what you were saying.”
Chary's voice held a bit of excitement as she replied. [So, Shelly was reading through one of the diaries and you wouldn't believe what all was in this one! It should be enough to open an investigation for sure, even without verification!]