THE CASCADE DINNER Chapter 16
The Service Tunnel
The service tunnel was not a secret—not exactly. Every employee at Timberline knew it existed, knew its twists and turns, knew that it connected the main building to the garage and the maintenance shed and the old root cellar that hadn’t been used in decades. But knowing about the tunnel and understanding the tunnel were two different things. The tunnel was dark, narrow, cold, and prone to flooding when the snow melted. It smelled of damp earth and rust and the particular mustiness of places that had been forgotten.
Otis had known the tunnel better than anyone. He had walked its length twice a week for fifty-two years, checking for cracks in the walls, leaks in the pipes, signs of animals nesting in the darkness. He had kept the tunnel alive through sheer force of habit, sweeping away cobwebs, tightening loose bolts, replacing burned-out lightbulbs. Since Otis’s death, no one had entered the tunnel. No one had even thought about it.
Until tonight.
Leo stood at the entrance to the tunnel—a narrow door behind the kitchen, hidden behind a stack of cleaning supplies—and looked into the darkness. The emergency lights did not reach this far. The only illumination came from his flashlight, the same dying flashlight he had used in the wine cellar. Its beam was weak, flickering, but it was better than nothing.
He had not listened to Julian. He had not stayed in the Great Room to keep the guests safe. He had waited exactly sixty seconds after Elena disappeared through the door, and then he had followed.
The tunnel was narrower than he remembered. Or perhaps it had always been this narrow, and he had simply forgotten. The walls were close on either side, close enough that his shoulders brushed against the rough stone. The ceiling was low, forcing him to stoop. Water dripped somewhere in the darkness—a slow, rhythmic plink-plink-plink that sounded like a countdown.
Leo walked carefully, his flashlight beam sweeping from side to side. The floor was uneven, littered with debris that crunched under his shoes. Old leaves. Broken glass. The desiccated remains of something that might have been a rat. He tried not to think about what he was stepping on.
Elena was somewhere ahead of him. He could not see her, could not hear her, but he could feel her presence—a disturbance in the cold, still air, a sense of movement just beyond the reach of his light. She was walking quickly, purposefully, the way someone walks when they have made a decision and do not intend to second-guess it.
Leo quickened his pace.
The tunnel turned sharply to the left, then to the right, then opened into a slightly wider space—an intersection where three passages met. Leo stopped and shone his light in each direction. Straight ahead led to the garage. Left led to the maintenance shed. Right led to the root cellar.
Elena’s footprints—fresh, unmistakable—led straight ahead.
Leo followed.
The air grew colder as he walked. Colder and damper, the moisture condensing on the walls and dripping from the ceiling. His breath plumed in front of his face. The flashlight flickered, dimmed, brightened, dimmed again. He shook it gently, and the beam steadied.
The garage door appeared in the distance—a metal roll-up door, rusted at the edges, its handle wrapped in a chain secured by a padlock. The supply van was on the other side, Leo knew. And somewhere between the tunnel and the van, Elena and Greta were meeting.
He reached the door and stopped.
The padlock was open.
Not cut, not broken, not picked. Open. Unlocked. Someone had opened it from the inside—or someone had known the combination.
Leo pushed the door. It rolled up with a sound like thunder in the confined space, the metal rattling, the chains clanking. He stepped through into the garage.
The garage was large enough for two vehicles, though only one was present—the supply van, a white Ford Transit with Timberline’s logo painted on the side. Its headlights were off, its engine silent. The garage door to the outside was closed, sealed against the snow.
And in the center of the garage, facing each other like duelists at dawn, stood Elena and Greta.
They were not fighting. They were not even speaking. They were simply standing, five feet apart, their eyes locked, their bodies still. The only movement was the slow drift of their breath in the cold air.
Leo stepped forward. His footsteps echoed in the silence.
Greta looked at him. Her face was calm, almost peaceful, as if she had been expecting him.
“I told Elena not to come,” Greta said. “I told her there was nothing here for her. Nothing but pain.”
“I came anyway,” Elena said.
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to see your face. I wanted to look you in the eyes and tell you what I think of you.”
Greta tilted her head. “And what do you think of me?”
Elena took a step closer. “I think you’re a coward. I think you killed your own daughter because you couldn’t bear to see Julian’s face in hers. I think you’ve spent ten years pretending to be a victim when you were really the villain. And I think you’re going to burn in hell for what you did.”
Greta’s expression did not change. “You may be right,” she said. “About all of it.”
“Then why did you do it? Why did you kill her?”
Greta was silent for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft, almost gentle.
“Because she reminded me of him,” Greta said. “Every time I looked at her, I saw Julian. The same eyes. The same smile. The same way of tilting her head when she was thinking. I tried to love her. I tried to see past his face and find the daughter I had dreamed about. But I couldn’t. Every time I looked at her, I saw the man who abandoned me. The man who left me alone and pregnant and terrified. The man who never once asked if I was okay, if I needed help, if I wanted him to be part of her life.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I killed Sonali because I couldn’t kill Julian. And I wanted to kill Julian more than anything in the world.”
Elena’s face twisted. “That’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
“Your daughter deserved better.”
“I know.”
“You don’t deserve to be her mother.”
Greta looked up. Her eyes were wet.
“I know,” she whispered.
Leo stepped between them.
“It’s over,” he said. “Both of you. No more running. No more hiding. No more killing.”
Greta looked at him. “What are you going to do, Leo? Lock me up again? I’ll just escape again.”
“Not this time. This time, you’re going to stay in the garage until the storm passes. And then you’re going to go with the police. You’re going to confess to everything. Sonali. Otis. The notes. The cake. All of it.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll lock you in the van. And I won’t give you the keys.”
Greta almost smiled. “You think a locked door can stop me?”
“I think you’re tired, Greta. I think you’ve been running for ten years, and you’re exhausted. I think some part of you wants to be caught. Wants to stop. Wants to finally face what you did.”
Greta’s composure cracked. Her lower lip trembled. Her eyes glistened.
“You’re right,” she said. “I am tired. I’m so tired, Leo.”
She sat down on the concrete floor, her back against the van’s front tire. She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” she said. “I just wanted to scare her. I wanted her to stop investigating the Accord. I wanted her to stop threatening to expose everyone. But she wouldn’t listen. She kept talking about justice, about the truth, about how she was going to make sure that everyone paid for what they had done.”
She closed her eyes.
“So I pushed her. Just once. She fell. Hit her head. There was blood everywhere. I tried to stop the bleeding, but it was too much. She was gone within minutes.”
She opened her eyes.
“I staged the accident. The car, the tree, the alcohol. I made it look like she had been drinking. I made it look like she had driven off the road. No one suspected. No one ever suspects the mother.”
Leo knelt beside her.
“I know,” he said. “Mira told me. She had a recording. You confessed to her three years ago.”
Greta nodded. “I thought Mira would understand. I thought she would be grateful, because Daniel was suspected and I had provided her with an alibi. I thought we were allies.”
“She was never your ally.”
“I know that now.”
Leo stood up. He looked at Elena.
“Stay with her,” he said. “Keep her calm. I’m going back to the lodge.”
Elena nodded. “What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth. All of it. They’ve waited ten years for answers. They deserve to hear them from someone who was there.”
Leo turned and walked back toward the service tunnel.
Behind him, he heard Greta begin to cry—soft, quiet sobs that echoed off the concrete walls and followed him into the darkness.
The walk back through the tunnel seemed longer than the walk out. The flashlight’s beam was almost gone now, a faint yellow glow that barely illuminated the path ahead. Leo walked carefully, one hand on the wall, his feet feeling for obstacles in the dark.
He thought about Greta. About Sonali. About the ten years of grief and rage and obsession that had led to this moment. He thought about Otis, dead because he had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He thought about Daniel, dying of cancer, confessing to a murder he didn’t commit because he wanted to be a hero for once in his life. He thought about Mira, carrying the weight of her husband’s secrets for a decade. He thought about Julian, hunting his daughter’s killer, never knowing that the killer was closer than he could have imagined.
He thought about Elena, who had finally stopped being a coward.
And he thought about himself—the manager, the servant, the furniture. The man who had spent eleven years making wealthy people comfortable, never asking questions, never digging deeper, never wondering what secrets were hiding beneath the surface.
He had wondered now. He had dug. And he had found things he wished he had never seen.
The tunnel ended. Leo pushed open the door and stepped back into the kitchen.
The lights were on.
Not the emergency lights—the real lights. The main power had been restored. Someone had fixed the generator, or the storm had eased enough for the backup systems to kick in. The kitchen gleamed under the fluorescent bulbs, bright and clean and ordinary.
Elena had mentioned the generator. Greta had tampered with it. Otis had seen her. And now the generator was working again.
Leo walked through the kitchen, past the walk-in refrigerator, past the industrial ovens, past the racks of pots and pans, and into the hallway.
The Great Room was bright too. The chandeliers were lit, their crystals throwing rainbows across the walls. The fire had burned down to embers, but the room was warm, comfortable, welcoming.
The guests were still there. Julian in his armchair. Marcus and Celeste on the sofa. Harold by the fireplace. Kaelen at the window. Priya on the floor. Reggie in his wingback chair.
They looked at Leo as he entered. They looked at his face, at his hands, at the dirt on his shoes from the tunnel floor.
“It’s over,” Leo said. “Greta is secured in the garage. Elena is with her. When the storm passes, the police will come, and she will confess to everything.”
“What about Daniel?” Mira asked. She had returned to the Great Room at some point—Leo hadn’t noticed. She was sitting in a chair near the window, her face pale, her hands folded in her lap.
“Daniel will face justice for his crimes. The embezzlement, the fraud, the lies. But not for murder. He didn’t kill Sonali.”
“I know,” Mira said. “I’ve always known.”
The room was silent.
Julian stood up. He walked to Leo and stood in front of him, his gray eyes searching Leo’s face.
“Thank you,” Julian said. “For everything.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You did more than anyone else. You listened. You asked questions. You didn’t look away.”
Julian extended his hand.
Leo shook it.
The grandfather clock in the hallway began to chime.
Three o’clock.
The hour before dawn. The hour when the world was darkest and coldest and loneliest. The hour when most deaths occurred.
But no one else would die tonight. Leo was sure of that.
He walked to the window and looked out at the snow.
It was still falling. Still piling. Still sealing them in.
But somewhere beyond the white silence, the sun was rising.