Instead of falling into a fireplace, the children slid down a smooth metal chute that deposited them onto a plush, velvet-covered floor. Michael clicked his flickering flashlight on.

“Whoa,” Aiden breathed, looking around.

They were in a room that shouldn’t have existed. It was a perfectly circular chamber hidden right in the center of the house’s massive chimney stack. The walls were lined with brass telescopes, strange radio equipment with glowing vacuum tubes, and rows of leather-bound journals.

“This is the Lookout Room,” Olivia whispered. “Papa isn’t just a gardener… he’s been watching for something.”

Michael approached a large desk in the center. On it sat a base that perfectly matched the wooden box they had found. He placed the box onto the pedestal.

Suddenly, the room whirred to life. The brass telescopes began to move on their own, pointing out through hidden slits in the brickwork toward the woods. On the wall, a giant glass map lit up, showing a pulsing red dot deep in the forest—exactly where they had found the box.

“It’s a tracking station,” Michael realized. “The box isn’t just a box—it’s the key to the whole system!”

Emma was looking at the journals. “Michael! Look at the name on the cover!”

Before he could read it, a hidden speaker crackled to life. A voice they recognized—the man in the uniform from the car—boomed through the room. “We know you’re in the chimney, children. But you’ve made a mistake. By activating the box, you’ve signaled the Retrieval Team. They’ll be landing in the clearing in five minutes. And we have your grandfather.”

The children looked at the glass map. The red dot was now surrounded by three blue dots. “They’ve captured him,” Olivia gasped. “We have to get to the woods!”

Read more at Hartman Mysteries