Chapter 10 - The Night the Church Burned
Dr. Reed smashed the tracker beneath her shoe.
Too late.
Black vehicles surrounded the church.
Men in dark uniforms moved through the cemetery without visible badges.
Lena locked the doors.
“They’re not police.”
“No,” Aaron said. “They work for the foundation.”
Camille gathered the files.
“Basement tunnel.”
Dr. Reed led them behind the altar. Beneath a loose stone was a narrow staircase descending into a drainage passage.
Before Anna entered, she heard glass break.
A canister rolled across the church floor.
Smoke exploded from it.
Aaron pulled his jacket over Anna’s face.
“Move!”
They descended into darkness.
Above them, men shouted.
The tunnel led toward an old burial field. Halfway through, a metal gate blocked the passage.
Dr. Reed tried three keys.
None worked.
“They changed the lock.”
Footsteps echoed behind them.
Aaron stepped forward.
“Give me the gun.”
Lena aimed it at his chest.
“No.”
“I know the people coming. They need me alive.”
“They may need Anna more.”
“That’s why I have to stay behind.”
Anna stared at him.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No. I expect you to understand that if they catch us together, none of you escape.”
He looked at Camille.
“I cannot undo what my family did.”
“They are not your family,” she said.
“They raised me. That was enough to make me responsible.”
He took the seventh cup from Dr. Reed and placed it inside his coat.
“The tracker is broken, but they won’t know that immediately.”
“You’ll lead them away,” Anna said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Aaron met her eyes.
“Because protection should have meant giving you a choice. I know that now.”
He climbed back toward the church.
Anna watched him disappear.
A minute later, his voice echoed overhead.
“She went through the west doors!”
The footsteps turned away.
Lena shot the gate’s lock.
They escaped into the cemetery.
Behind them, flames rose through the church roof.
The fire spread rapidly, consuming the evidence left inside.
Dr. Reed led them to a safe apartment above a closed pharmacy.
At dawn, a news broadcast reported that three dangerous psychiatric patients had escaped from St. Catherine’s with assistance from a disgraced physician.
Anna’s photograph appeared on the screen.
The report described her as delusional, pregnant and potentially violent.
Dr. Reed’s medical license had been suspended overnight.
Lena was wanted for kidnapping.
Camille was identified as a convicted arsonist.
“They’re rewriting us,” Anna said.
“They always do,” Camille replied.
A second report interrupted the first.
Police had discovered a body inside the burned church.
The victim was believed to be Aaron Vale.
Anna stared at the screen.
“No.”
The camera showed a covered stretcher.
A reporter explained that identification had been made through personal documents and a family ring.
Anna knew the ring.
Aaron never removed it.
Camille switched off the television.
“He may have chosen this.”
“Chosen to die?”
“Chosen to disappear.”
Anna remembered his final expression.
It had not been the face of a man expecting forgiveness.
It had been the face of someone beginning a plan.
A knock sounded at the apartment door.
Three slow taps.
Two fast.
Dr. Reed drew her weapon.
“Who knows this location?”
“No one,” Lena whispered.
The knock repeated.
Anna moved toward the door.
On the floor beneath it was a folded page.
She opened it.
The message had been written in Aaron’s handwriting.
May you like
The body is not mine.
Do not trust Evelyn Reed.
