Chapter Eighty-Two Holly
Chapter Eighty-two
HOLLY
I blink to consciousness on the cold floor of the panic room.
‘Holly? Holly?’ It’s Fitzwilliam’s voice. ‘Are you awake?’
‘Am I awake?’ I mumble, putting out a hand fuzzily in the semi-gloom, and finding stone floor. ‘I think so.’ I look up into Fitzwilliam’s pale blue eyes. They look a lot less haughty than I remember.
Fitzwilliam breathes out hard. ‘Thank God,’ he says. ‘I thought … Never mind. Let’s get you up.’
I sit with effort, then squeeze my eyes tight shut.
‘OK. Wow,’ I say. ‘That hurts.’
‘You fell down the steps,’ he explains. ‘Knocked you out cold.’ He hesitates. ‘We’re trapped here, Holly. Someone shut us in. I’ve been pounding the door for hours.’
‘For hours?’ I touch my head tentatively. ‘How long was I out?’
‘I can’t say for sure but … I’d guess it must be morning by now.’
I turn my head to look up toward the dark steps out.
‘Adrianna’s wedding day,’ I say thoughtfully. ‘Someone pushed me down the stairs,’ I add.
Fitzwilliam nods. ‘I figured. Do you know who?’
I shake my head. Wince. The full extent of our situation is beginning to weigh heavily on me.
‘The portrait door has resealed,’ says Fitzwilliam. ‘We’re trapped down here.’
‘No one knows where we are,’ I say.
I get to my feet, with Fitzwilliam’s help, and take a moment to absorb where I am.
‘Wow.’ I pause to rub my eyes. ‘This is real, right?’
‘It’s real.’
I take it in. ‘Jesus.’
The room is furnished in the loudest, brightest kitsch imaginable. I have never seen so many colors, patterns and textures all in one place. My eyes settle on slices of lime-green psychedelic wallpaper, hung in thick stripe formation, next to purple flocked Paisley, and a chintzy rose pattern.
Furnishings are velvet, in joyful pinks and blues.
There’s a bar, set with gaudy bottles of liquor and retro glassware, and low seats have been scattered all around.
Rococo cornicing has been repurposed into decorative wall-shelves and stuffed with garish ornaments.
A kind-faced plastic Jesus shares a shelf with a smoked-glass Tikki tankard, three ceramic rabbits and a battery-operated Hawaiian hula dancer, revolving languidly.
There’s a kind of magnificence to it. Like someone put Fortune House’s deep colors and colonial elegance through the looking glass.
But several aspects of the decor don’t fit. Above the bar is a wooden family crest, which, by the pockmarked surface and peeling paint, looks to be antique. It depicts the famous Kensington swords and ravens, above the words: Discipline, Self-Restraint, and God.
Then there’s the wall art. Saints or apostles, painted in the same lurid colors as the interior, but somehow different. Less exultant. More macabre. One saint is being shot at on all sides by arrows, while another lies on a burning bed. A third, his round halo flaming, is being boiled in oil.
Finally, at the center is a Chesterfield daybed, of soft chocolate-color leather, sitting grandly. Nothing about it matches the decor at all.
‘Do you recognize the bed?’ asks Fitzwilliam. ‘It was the one Adrianna was manacled to for three days. I guess it’s here as some kind of lurid memento to the kidnap.’
‘Seems in bad taste.’ I catch a glimpse of myself in a flock-framed mirror with ‘Good Times’ written on the glass. My blue hair is flat, and eyeliner is smudged around my round eyes.
‘If you think that’s in bad taste, come farther into the back.’ He beckons me a little further in. Hanging from an elaborately corniced ceiling are three dresses. Bridal gowns.
‘Shit.’ I move closer.
‘Is that a scientific term?’ asks Fitzwilliam.
I eye the dresses, and shiver, despite myself.
‘This was Ophelia’s design, right?’
‘Ophelia’s and Silky’s, I think.’
We’re interrupted by a soft beeping sound.
‘Wine coolers,’ explains Fitzwilliam, as the noise stops. ‘Looks as though they have some automatic temperature adjustment built into the racks.’
He nods in the direction of the largest wine display I’ve ever seen. Hundreds of deep burgundy and olive-topped vintages glowing expensively under the low light. They take up three entire walls.
‘Did you take a look to see if Simone set anything up down here?’ I ask.
‘Not yet.’ He manages a small smile. ‘I was somewhat preoccupied.’ Fitzwilliam runs a hand sheepishly through his thick crop of black hair.
I smile back. My eyes land on the giant daybed, where Adrianna was famously manacled for her three-day ordeal.
The wine display beeps again, soft and urgent. Frowning, I turn toward it. ‘Should it be making that noise?’
‘Probably means the temperature is off, for one of the racks,’ he says.
I look at the small LED displays topping each column of wine. Around a hundred in total, lined all around the room.
‘Those numbers aren’t temperature,’ I murmur. ‘That’s a relative humidity reading.’
‘I’m impressed,’ says Fitzwilliam. ‘You know something about wine.’
‘I know something about cadaver storage,’ I correct him. ‘We use relative humidity in morgues.’
I take a step back, letting my eyes range the digital displays. My finger tracks along the various displays. They all vary. My eyes light on one.
‘This one is 85 to 90.’
‘That would be high for wine,’ says Fitzwilliam. ‘You’d risk mold on the corks.’
‘It’s the relative humidity used to preserve bodies.’ I turn to him excitedly. ‘Simone, this is just the kind of detail she liked to talk about on the show.’
My eyes rove the rack. It must hold sixty or so bottles, floor to ceiling. Where to start?
‘Six feet under,’ I murmur. Taking a breath, I stand on my tiptoes and count down six places from the top. When I reach the sixth bottle, I slide it free.
‘Nothing out of the ordinary,’ I tell Fitzwilliam, disappointed. ‘It’s just a regular bottle of wine.’
I push a hand into the cavity. ‘Nothing here.’
‘I’m taller than you,’ says Fitzwilliam. ‘Let me look.’ He comes to stand beside me, peering into the space in the wine rack. Then pushes a long arm deep inside.
‘Anything?’ I ask hopefully, knowing in my heart there isn’t.
To my great surprise, Fitzwilliam’s hand emerges, clutching a sheaf of documents.
‘Crammed right into the back,’ he says, handing them to me. ‘You’d never find them unless you knew where to look.’
My heart catches in my chest. ‘Fitzwilliam,’ I breathe, ‘this is it. The documents Simone wanted to reveal on Wrongly Accused.’