Chapter 4 - The Bell Tower Agreement
The old bell tower stood forty miles north of the city on land once owned by Saint Orison Children's Home.
The home had closed after a fire fifteen years earlier. Officially, no one died. Unofficially, seventeen children and three workers disappeared from public records during the same week.
Mara found that information in twelve minutes.
"The property changed hands nine times," she said as the convoy moved through the storm. "Every company was dissolved within a year. The current owner is Mercy Renewal Foundation."
David laughed from the rear seat of the middle car. "A charity. You're chasing ghosts."
Rafe sat beside him. "Ghosts don't request you alive."
Lily rode again with Mara, but this time Mr. Vale sat opposite her. Token 317 rested in his palm.
"You are not entering the tower," he said.
"The message says the girl."
"That is why you are not entering."
"They have my mother."
"And they want you."
Lily looked at the dark road. "Mom always said bad people count on good people being too scared to do anything."
"Your mother was right. She was also trying to keep you alive."
"Will you save her?"
Mr. Vale looked at the token.
"Yes."
"Because your brother owes her?"
His jaw tightened. "Because I owe my brother the truth."
Lily did not like the answer, but she believed it.
They stopped two miles from the tower. Mr. Vale's men moved ahead through the woods. Mara tracked thermal images from a surveillance van. The building showed six heat signatures: one in the tower room, three on the ground floor, two below ground.
"No visible vehicles," Mara said. "Possible tunnel access."
A message arrived on David's phone.
SEND HIM IN WITH THE KEY.
Mr. Vale looked at David. "Which key?"
David's eyes flicked toward the Porsche key.
"I don't know."
Lily remembered the music box. "Maybe the car key opens something else."
Mr. Vale held it to the light. The metal blade looked ordinary, but the crest on the fob was thicker than necessary. Rafe pried it apart. Inside was a narrow strip of film covered in tiny numbers.
Mara photographed it. "Bank access sequence. Old format. Possibly a safe-deposit vault."
David began breathing faster.
Mr. Vale leaned toward him. "You drove that car for six months and never found this?"
"I had no reason to break the key."
"But someone believed you had Samuel's final ledger."
David looked away.
They formed a plan. Rafe would escort David to the tower. Mr. Vale would follow with the token. Lily would remain in the van with Mara under guard.
At 4:38 in the morning, three figures crossed the ruined courtyard.
The bell tower rose above leafless trees. Fire had blackened its bricks, and ivy crawled across the entrance. A dim yellow light glowed in the top window.
A speaker crackled.
"Leave the weapons outside."
Mr. Vale placed his gun on the stone path. Rafe did the same. David hesitated until Rafe pushed him forward.
"The girl," the speaker demanded.
Mr. Vale raised token 317. "First, show me Elena Carter."
The tower window brightened. Elena appeared behind the glass with someone holding a gun to her head.
Lily pressed both hands against the van monitor.
"Mom."
Elena lifted her face. Even through the grainy image, Lily saw her mouth form one word.
Run.
Mara saw it too.
A new message appeared on the screen.
THE GIRL WALKS IN OR THE MOTHER FALLS.
Lily unbuckled her seat belt.
Mara caught her arm. "No."
"They'll kill her."
"They may kill both of you."
"Then why did she give me the token?"
Before Mara could answer, Lily noticed something beneath Elena's chair. A small mirror angled toward the window flashed three times, paused, then flashed once.
Lily knew that pattern.
When their apartment lights had been cut off last winter, Elena had taught her to signal numbers with a flashlight.
Three. One.
317.
Lily looked at the token in Mr. Vale's hand on the monitor. There was a notch along the rim beside the number one.
"The token opens something," she said. "Mom is telling us."
Mara radioed Mr. Vale.
He pressed the notch. The brass face separated, revealing a tiny rolled paper.
On it was a hand-drawn map of tunnels beneath the children's home.
One route began in the woods behind the van.
Lily understood what her mother had done. Elena had not sent her to Belladonna merely to find help. She had sent the only map that could reach the basement prisoners without passing the tower guards.
Mr. Vale kept talking to the speaker while Rafe stalled beside David.
Mara dispatched two teams to the tunnel entrance.
Then the tower door opened.
A masked man stepped out holding a remote trigger.
"Last chance," he called. "Bring us the girl."
David suddenly tore free of Rafe and sprinted toward the masked man.
"I brought Vale!" he shouted. "Now give me my money!"
The masked man raised the gun.
May you like
Not at Mr. Vale.
At David.
