Page 27 of The Summer Inn on Plum Island
The idea of leaving the hotel, even for an evening, seemed more appealing by the second, especially with the disturbing feelings Daniel had stirred in her.
Dawn rushed to the bathroom, where she realized she’d had her phone last. As she walked back into the main room, flippingthrough the missed messages and calls, she was so engrossed in catching up on what she had missed that she misjudged her steps toward the closet. Her shoulder bumped sharply against the long mirror attached to the wall beside her closet, jarring her from her thoughts and making her drop her phone.
“Shoot,” she muttered, bending to pick up her phone from where it had skittered across the floor. As she straightened, she noticed that the mirror was slightly ajar, revealing a sliver of space behind it. Frowning, Dawn pulled at the mirror, and it swung open. Her eyes widened in astonishment at what she saw, but before she could investigate further, a knock at the door pulled her attention away.
Dawn hurried to the door and opened it to find Liam standing there, smiling, with Hicks, whose tail wagged enthusiastically at the sight of her.
“Hi.” Dawn scratched Hicks’s ears as she looked at Liam. “You have to see what I just found,” she said without preamble, grabbing his hand and leading him back to the mirror. She pulled it open again, showing him the unexpected discovery.
Liam stepped closer, peering into the darkened space behind the mirror. “Is that a passage?” he asked, astonished.
“It looks like it might be,” Dawn replied, her earlier anxieties temporarily forgotten in the face of this new mystery.
“We should see where it leads,” Liam suggested, pulling out his phone and switching on its flashlight.
Hicks was already sniffing the ground as he stepped into the small dark area first.
“Really?” Dawn hesitated, the reality of exploring an unknown, hidden passage suddenly daunting. “Maybe we should wait until the morning and let someone else, like maybe Carl, know about it. Just in case we’re walking into some weird alternate reality or some other weird portal or a trap set by the phantom thief?”
Liam stared at her for a few seconds. “We need to know. This wing is part of the original hotel that the Peters renovated before I bought it.” He shone his light into the passage. “There could be a whole lot of these secret passageways which could explain how someone has been moving around the hotel undetected,” he reasoned and glanced at Hicks. “Besides, we have Hicks with us. And trust me, no one is going to mess with us, not even a phantom with him around. He may seem like a big softy to people he likes, but Hicks becomes totally opposite when people he likes are threatened.”
Nodding, Dawn allowed the thrill of adventure to overtake her nerves. Together, they stepped into the passage, the beam from Liam’s flashlight cutting through the darkness ahead. Dawn turned on her phone’s flashlight to further illuminate the passage. The walls were close and lined with old wood, the floor dusty as they moved slowly, the light revealing a narrow, winding path that sloped gently downward.
As they progressed, the air grew cooler, and the passage widened into a small chamber. The beam of the flashlight swept across the walls, revealing faded wallpaper and a heavy, musty scent that spoke of decades, if not centuries, of concealment. At the far end of the chamber, they found an old wooden desk. As they turned to look around the room, their eyes widened as they noted three other doors labeled ground, first floor, second floor, and basement.
But what caught their attention was the old wooden door behind the desk with a rusty handle.
“I wonder where that door leads to?” Dawn whispered.
“Let’s find out,” Liam suggested, handing Dawn Hicks’s leash. “Can you hold him while I try to open the door?”
“Sure,” Dawn said, feeling a lot safer when she took Hicks’s leash.
As if feeling her fear, Hicks sat close beside her as they watched Liam test the door handle. It moved, and Liam pushed the creaky door open. Dawn stepped up beside him with Hicks by her side as the three of them peered into the room. They shone their flashlights around the room and found shelves lined with old journals and another old dusty desk in the middle of the room.
“This must be the original phantom thieves hideout,” Dawn found herself whispering once again.
CHAPTER 6
The beam from Liam’s flashlight cut a swath through the stale air of the hidden room, illuminating rows of dust-laden shelves packed with leather-bound journals and miscellaneous papers. The mustiness was overwhelming, a testament to the decades, perhaps even centuries, the room had remained sealed.
“This looks like something straight out of a mystery novel,” Liam murmured, stepping carefully over the threshold. His eyes scanned the ancient desk centered beneath a cobwebbed chandelier, its once ornate crystals dull with grime.
Dawn, clutching Hicks’s leash tightly, followed close behind. “It’s incredible,” she whispered, her voice tinged with awe and a slight tremor of apprehension. “Do you think the thief used this?”
“Or maybe it was just a very secretive writer,” Liam joked half-heartedly, trying to lighten the mood.
He approached the desk, the old wood creaking under his touch as he opened a drawer. Inside, he found a stack of faded photographs and several old maps of the island.
Hicks, sensing the tension from his human companions, whined softly, his head tilting as if puzzled by their concern.
“Look at these,” Liam said, holding up a photograph for Dawn to see.
It was a black-and-white image of the Summer Inn, dating back to the early 1900s. The back of the photo was inscribed with elegant handwriting, simply noting the date and ‘renovation complete.’
Dawn leaned closer, her flashlight beam dancing over the photo. “This could help us understand some of the Inn’s history,” she noted, her fingers brushing against the edge of the photo, touching a piece of the past.
Liam replaced the photo and sifted through the papers, uncovering a journal with a cracked leather spine. He flipped it open, the pages yellowed and brittle. The handwriting was a looping script, difficult to decipher, but the date on the top of the page caught his eye:May 7th, 1896.
