Chapter 9 - The Fire Beneath Bellweather
The gas smelled sweet.
Within seconds, my vision blurred.
Marcus pulled off his coat and pressed it over Noah’s face while I searched for a release mechanism beside the sealed door.
There was no handle.
No keypad.
Only a circular glass panel embedded in the wall.
Behind us, Briggs struggled against the pipe.
“Blood,” he rasped.
“What?”
“The lock reads blood.”
I looked at the glass panel.
A needle extended from its center.
“Whose blood?”
“Mercer.”
I pressed my thumb against the needle.
It punctured my skin.
A red light flashed.
ACCESS DENIED.
Victor Sloane laughed through the speaker.
“You carry the name, Daniel. Not the inheritance.”
Noah whimpered beneath Marcus’s coat.
The lock required his blood.
I would not press my son’s hand against an unknown device.
But the gas was thickening.
Marcus staggered.
Briggs’s head dropped.
I took Noah’s smallest finger.
“I’m sorry, buddy.”
The needle touched his skin.
The light turned green.
The door opened.
At the same moment, flames erupted in the tunnel outside.
Someone had ignited fuel along the passage.
We carried Noah through the fire.
Marcus found a maintenance ladder leading upward. I pushed Noah ahead of me while smoke filled the shaft.
Briggs remained in the chamber.
I turned back.
“Leave him,” Marcus shouted.
“He knows what happened to Sarah.”
I ran through the smoke, cut Briggs free with a piece of broken metal, and dragged him toward the ladder.
The ceiling collapsed behind us.
We emerged into the ruined courtyard as flames burst through cracks in the ground.
Ortiz’s team rushed forward.
Paramedics took Noah and Briggs.
Marcus collapsed beside a stone wall, coughing black soot.
Then a gunshot echoed from the tree line.
Briggs jerked on the stretcher.
Blood spread across his chest.
A second shot shattered the lamp beside me.
Officers returned fire.
The shooter disappeared into the forest.
Briggs grabbed my sleeve with surprising strength.
“Sloane didn’t kill Sarah.”
“Who did?”
“Your father ordered it.”
“I know.”
Briggs shook his head.
“No. He ordered the car stopped. He wanted the files.”
“Then who cut the brakes?”
His lips trembled.
“The woman who loved you.”
I leaned closer.
“Vanessa?”
Briggs looked past me.
His expression changed to terror.
A figure stood beyond the flames wearing a red coat.
Miriam Cross.
She raised a pistol.
Briggs released my sleeve.
The third bullet struck him between the eyes.
Police rushed toward the trees, but Miriam vanished.
Why would the woman who had warned Sarah now kill the detective capable of identifying Sarah’s murderer?
Unless Briggs had been about to name someone else.
Or unless Miriam wanted me to believe Vanessa was responsible.
At the hospital, doctors examined Noah.
No sedatives.
No internal injuries.
Only the small puncture from the lock.
His bloodwork, however, showed something impossible.
An unusual protein marker appeared at levels the hospital laboratory had never recorded.
The doctor assumed equipment error and repeated the test.
The result was identical.
Before he could explain further, the hospital computer network failed.
Every copy of Noah’s blood results disappeared.
The physical sample vanished from the laboratory.
Someone inside the hospital had taken it.
Detective Ortiz ordered armed officers outside Noah’s room.
Emily climbed into bed beside her brother and refused to leave.
I sat between them until dawn.
Marcus watched from the doorway.
“What did Briggs mean?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“The woman who loved you.”
“He could have meant Vanessa.”
“He could have meant Sarah.”
I turned toward him.
Marcus looked exhausted, but his eyes were alert.
“What are you suggesting?”
“What if Sarah damaged her own car to create evidence?”
“She would not kill herself.”
“Maybe she never intended to drive it.”
“You think someone switched the cars?”
“I think we know almost nothing about what happened that day.”
Detective Ortiz entered carrying a sealed plastic bag.
Inside was the bullet recovered from Briggs’s body.
Ballistics matched it to a pistol registered to Sarah Mercer.
The weapon had disappeared after her death.
Now Miriam Cross was carrying it.
Ortiz placed another item on the table.
A silver locket taken from Briggs’s hand.
May you like
Inside was a recent photograph of Sarah.
Alive.
