There was someone down there, trapped beneath the house, while I stood up here making rosemary chicken.

I looked at my laptop, which sat open at the far end of the kitchen island.

The screen showed the administrative dashboard of my blog, *Clara’s Kitchen*.

Julian usually kept the master password to himself, but he had logged in this morning to upload a new batch of photos.

He had forgotten to sign out.

A small red notification circle was blinking in the top right corner of the dashboard.

It was a direct message on the blog’s private community forum.

Normally, Julian routed all reader inquiries to his personal email, leaving me only the pre-approved comments to read.

But this message had bypassed his filters.

I walked over to the laptop, positioning my body so I blocked the camera’s view of the screen.

I tapped the trackpad.

The message box opened.

The sender’s username was *SaffronSky*.

The subject line of the message was short: *The hatch in the floor.*

The room seemed to grow cold.

I clicked on the message, my hand trembling so hard the cursor danced across the screen.