He tapped it once.
It sounded hollow.
My stomach dropped.
‘Ricardo,’ I whispered, ‘what did you do?’
He glanced back at me, and there was something in his face I had not seen in years. Not softness. Not fear.
Resolve.
‘I never told you,’ he said, ‘because I prayed I would die before I ever needed to show you.’
Then he slid his fingers into a seam so thin I had never noticed it.
And the wall moved.
Not crumbling.
Not breaking.
Moving.
A disguised panel of stone and plaster shifted inward, revealing darkness behind it and the cold breath of a space that had been sealed from the rest of the house for decades.
I stumbled toward him.
Inside was a narrow passage barely wide enough for one person, shelves cut into the wall, and a recess hidden deeper in shadow. Ricardo reached in and pulled out something wrapped in old oilcloth.
It was heavy enough that both his hands tightened around it.
He laid it on a crate and unwrapped it carefully.
