Page 84 of Enduring Caine

“Ow, shit!”

Just then, the lights came back on. Samantha lay on the ground, next to the overturned cupboard which had held all the glasses, their shattered remains strewn all around. I ran, skidding to the floor next to her. “What happened?”

She rolled to her side, only one cut visible on her neck, just below her ear. Her shaky hand rose, and she pointed to the wall behind me. “I’m no expert, but I think that’s a lead.”

Next to where the cupboard used to stand, the wall had moved to reveal a passageway beyond. “The scratch marks must have been from it opening?”

“Samantha?” It was Leonardo, far later than I’d expected him. “Antonio?”

“We’re back here.” I helped Samantha sit up and checked her over for injuries. Nothing visible other than her neck.

A wicked gleam danced in her eyes.

“What happened?” I asked. The ancient cupboard had been here as long as I could remember and it was likely decades older than I was.

“I found a lever behind a cask and I backed up when the wall moved. It happened so fast—I don’t think I ran into the cupboard, but I guess I must have.”

Leonardo arrived in the room. “What have you done, Antonio?”

“Giovanni sent us down here.” I turned to glower at him. “He wanted Samantha’s eyes on this place.”

He gestured at the open door and the rock face.

Samantha stretched her shoulders, cleaning dust and sand off her clothes yet again. She’d been lucky the glasses fell away from her. “Leo, this is right next to where I found Johann. I heard there was nothing on the video in the wine cellar of his attacker. What if they came in this way?”

I helped her stand. “Where does it go?”

“Or…” She paused, evaluating the door and the wall. “If he collapsed from something natural and the door opened, it could have pushed him into the corner. But that would mean someone opened it.”

Leonardo glowered at each of us. “It leads to the cave. We had it excavated five years ago to help move shipments which came in by water.” His glare turned to Samantha, growing colder. “This is not something for her to see.”

“Little late for that now.” She rolled her eyes, in a manner far different from how she normally rolled them at me. “Let’s see if there are any clues.”

Leonardo approached the hidden door. “Only people we trust completely know this is here.”

“Only people you trust have been told about it.” Samantha fell into step next to him. “I hate to break it to you, but if I found it, someone else you don’t trust might have, too.”

He stared at her for a long moment, fists clenching and unclenching. But this was my Samantha, and she was in her element. I’d seen a change in her last night, as though she was finally overcoming what happened on New Year’s Eve. This confirmed it. The old Samantha was on her way back.

“Listen, Leonardo,” she said. “You don’t have to like me to accept I’m right. The three of us can work together on this, then you can go right back to calling me a harpy. Frankly, I don’t care. You and I may have different reasons for wanting to find out what happened to Johann, but our goal is the same.”

He didn’t respond, just walked through the doorway into the cramped, narrow stone hallway.

I grabbed Samantha’s flashlight from where she left it on the table and inclined my head. “Shall we?”

Chapter 37

Samantha

Thehiddendoorwayanddank steps down to the cave didn’t yield any clues. We walked the length of it twice with my flashlight and the one Leonardo had brought. There were no cameras in the stairwell, just like the tasting room. They must have assumed the only ways into those two rooms were from the cave and the wine cellar’s entry, so why monitor the entire thing?

The base of the staircase was hidden from sight, requiring a person to know exactly which tiny offshoot from the cave was the right one to follow in order to find it. My first time down there with Vincenzo, I’d found the entrance, but hadn’t explored further.

“This was the last place we spotted him on the recording,” said Leo, as we walked into the kitchen. “After this, he went to the wine cellar and was killed.”

We were tracing Johann’s last steps. No one knew why he’d gone to the cellar and the kitchen was our last stop.

“Or died,” I said, as I’d been following up to Leo’s comments over and over. There was no proof either way, and the in-house doctor hadn’t been able to make a determination before the body was taken away. “Where’s Henri? Did you question him?”