CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
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SOMEONE HAD SEARCHED the cellar carefully, and signs of several people trespassing Nick’s basement abounded everywhere. Nick kept about ten sacks of grain in there. Someone had cleaved all of them and spread the grains on the granite floor. Nick’s eyes narrowed to slits when the man noticed the waste. He needed those grains for his stud.
The vandals had also started fires in three places, using gasoline as an accelerator, and timed the blaze. They probably wanted to have time to search around the rest of the house as well.
The perpetrators hadn’t discovered Nick’s secret entrance before they abandoned the cellar. They had just moved to other areas of the house.
Nick put the fires out once he had reached the cellar. The man had had the foresight to place a cou
