Chapter 4 - Rachel's Confession
Ethan climbed the basement stairs alone.
At the top, Deputy Mason Pike stood in the nave with one hand resting on his holstered pistol. He was thirty, clean-cut, nervous, and had once been a student in Ethan's high school wrestling clinic. Rachel stood five feet to his left.
She was not restrained.
That mattered.
"Where's Cole?" Ethan asked.
Pike swallowed. "Outside."
"Then why are you talking for him?"
"He told me to bring you in."
"For what?"
"Obstruction. Threatening an officer. Tampering with evidence."
"Which evidence?"
Pike's eyes shifted.
Ethan stepped closer. "The cut brake line you didn't photograph? The diner video Cole tried to confiscate? Or whatever he thinks is in this church?"
Pike's face went pale.
Rachel spoke quickly. "Ethan, please. Just go with him."
"Why?"
"Because Travis has Luke."
Pike turned toward her. "Rachel."
She ignored him.
"He sent me a new video ten minutes ago. Luke is alive. He's in a concrete room. Travis said if you don't surrender, they'll move him tonight."
Ethan looked at Pike.
"Did you know that?"
"I don't know what she's talking about."
"Look at me."
Pike did.
Ethan had interrogated men trained to beat polygraphs, survive captivity, and lie while dying. Pike was none of those men.
He was scared and confused.
"You're not in on it," Ethan said.
Pike's jaw tightened. "In on what?"
"Ask your sheriff why he uses the Baxter airstrip after midnight. Ask him why county fuel records show nine thousand gallons purchased for vehicles that don't exist. Ask him who cut Caleb Miller's brakes."
Pike took a step back.
Outside, headlights swept across the church windows.
Rachel grabbed Ethan's sleeve.
"There's more."
He looked at her.
"I met Travis before we married."
Ethan felt the room narrow.
"How long before?"
"Two years."
"Were you with him?"
Rachel's silence answered.
Ethan's face did not change, but something behind it did.
She started crying.
"It ended before I met you. I swear. He was different then. Or I thought he was. After we got married, he started showing up again. At first it was jokes. Then threats. Then Luke disappeared."
"Why didn't you tell me you had a history with him?"
"Because I knew how you'd see it."
"How do I see it now?"
"Like I betrayed you before I even knew you."
"No." Ethan's voice was quiet. "I see six months of lies after you did know me."
She flinched as if struck.
Outside, a car door slammed.
Pike looked toward the entrance.
"Sheriff's coming in."
Daniel's voice came from the basement stairwell.
"We need to move."
Pike spun and drew his pistol halfway.
Daniel appeared with both hands visible.
Pike froze.
"You're dead."
"I've heard."
The church doors opened.
Sheriff Cole entered with four deputies.
His eyes went first to Daniel.
Then to Ethan.
Then to Rachel.
And for the first time that day, Cole looked genuinely afraid.
"Everybody on the floor," he ordered.
No one moved.
Cole's face reddened. "Now!"
Pike slowly lowered his own pistol.
"Sheriff," he said, "what's Helix?"
The silence that followed was perfect.
Cole looked at Pike the way a man looks at a dog that has bitten him.
"What did you say?"
"I asked what Helix is."
Cole raised his weapon and shot Pike in the chest.
Rachel screamed.
Ethan moved before the echo stopped.
He slammed a pew into Cole's firing line, pulled Pike behind the stone baptismal font, and shouted for everyone to get down.
The deputies stared at their sheriff in disbelief.
Cole shouted, "He reached for me! You saw it!"
But no one had.
Pike was gasping, both hands pressed to his vest. The round had hit armor.
Daniel kicked shut the side door as one deputy ran outside, vomiting.
Ethan looked at Cole across the overturned pew.
Cole's pistol trembled.
"You just lost them," Ethan said.
Cole's eyes darted toward his deputies.
May you like
He knew Ethan was right.
Then every light in the church went out.
