Was this a dead end? I was worried about the Duchess. If she’d vanished, just like her statue, would either of them ever be seen again? There were too many people at this party with hidden intentions. And the Duchess had said people had warned her against carrying out her plan. Had one of the Duchess’s close companions been so desperate to stop her that they’d done something to her, using Sven’s performance as a cover?

I slumped back down in the marble chair, kicking my legs and trying to think.

My heel connected with the base of the throne.

Click!

I jumped to my feet just as the seat and arms of the throne dropped away into darkness, leaving a gaping hole in front of the back of the chair.

I looked into the opening, trying to make out what was at the bottom. But the chandelier’s golden light didn’t reach into the darkness. I leaned a little ways into the shaft, trying to see better. …

And felt a pair of hands at my back. Before I could turn to see who they belonged to, I was shoved—hard. I tumbled over the edge of the opening and into the unknown.

CHAPTER ELEVEN The Strickland Family Business

ARMS FLAILING, I FELL FOR three full seconds—I counted under my breath—before I hit something solid. Fortunately, I landed on some sort of padded platform suspended in the shaft, which cushioned my fall. I didn’t have time to save my phone, though—it fell out of my dress’s pocket, slipped through a crack between the platform and the tunnel wall, and tumbled to its doom, crashing hard against a stone floor below. It looked like I’d been saved from a nasty fall. Far above me, I saw the small square of light from the opening that I’d fallen through, and then the square disappeared with a thud that echoed the length of the tunnel. That solved one mystery. The slamming sound I’d heard earlier before Sven and Bess’s performance had been this seat slamming shut. Someone must have come down this secret passageway earlier. My assailant must have just closed the trapdoor, stranding me below. I didn’t waste time wondering who had pushed me. That was a mystery to be solved later. First I had to figure out how I was going to get out of here.

I examined the platform that had saved me, which looked like a simple, open-topped elevator. The padded floor was enclosed by metal handrails, one side of which had a gate, a small ladder, and a control panel with up and down arrows. Beyond the gate there was an arched opening in the shaft wall, through which I could see a passageway lit by weak candlelight. There was no point in taking the elevator back to the top and pounding on the stone seat. It was solid marble. No one would hear me. The only way out was forward. I opened the gate and stepped through the archway, passing into a long, dark tunnel leading who knew where.