Page 54 of The Catcher

“No.”

“You should have. There’s another riddle.”

“What is it?”

Rishi repeated it.

“In the quiet confines where secrets confide,

Beneath the floorboards, where fears reside.

Seek the space where darkness seeps,

And there, the buried secret sleeps.”

Noah quickly jotted it down.

“Guys! Hey!” he called out, waving over Porter and McKenzie, who were now near the office.

They hurried over, their expressions curious. “What’s up?” Porter asked.

“There’s another riddle on the other side of the tape,” Noah explained, holding up his phone. “Rishi just called with the details.”

McKenzie’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “Well, laddie, spit it out,” he said, eager to unravel the mystery.

Noah recited the riddle once more:

“In the quiet confines where secrets confide,

Beneath the floorboards, where fears reside.

Seek the space where darkness seeps,

And there, the buried secret sleeps.”

McKenzie’s voice carried a tone of disgust. “Buried? That sick bastard better not have done what I think he has.”

Porter’s eyes widened, his mind racing to grasp the implications. Meanwhile, McKenzie’s lips tightened as he mulled over the words.

“Underneath the floorboards,” Porter muttered, his thoughts aligning with Noah’s interpretation.

McKenzie’s expression hardened. “Well, that narrows it down. We have a mansion and ten outbuildings. What are we meant to do, pull up the floors of all of them?"

“No,” Noah replied, scanning the array of outbuildings. “Seek the space where darkness seeps,” he repeated, hismind racing to interpret the cryptic clue. “Where does darkness seep out of?”

“Crawl spaces,” McKenzie declared, his eyes narrowing with determination.

With newfound clarity, they directed their efforts toward the buildings with crawl spaces. It took a little time to narrow their search to three structures, as the others were constructed from solid stone and lacked such hidden space.

“Colt Banning!”

The desperate call for Colt Banning echoed through the air, sending a shiver down Noah’s spine as he tore off the lattice covering the lower portion of the mansion. With a flashlight, he crouched and peered beneath the aging structure, his heart pounding.

“Colt,” he called out, his voice echoing in the darkness. But no reply came back, only the eerie silence of the abandoned estate. “Oh God, please,” he muttered under his breath as he lowered himself and began to crawl underneath, his face encountering spiderwebs and his path obstructed by discarded debris.

As Noah pressed on, his senses heightened, every rustle and scuffle in the darkness set his nerves on edge — a rodent shot across the uneven dirt, adding to the sense of urgency.

Soon, others joined him, their flashlights casting erratic beams that danced and cut through the oppressive darkness. Together, they combed through the crawl space, searching for any sign of the missing teenager.