Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN AT THE STATION
At eleven that night, the abandoned station was silent except for the wind moving through broken glass.
Rowan and Milo entered through a side gate.
They had left their phones in Milo’s car, as instructed. Milo carried a small analog recorder hidden inside his coat.
“No electronic tracking,” he whispered.
“That recorder is electronic.”
“It is emotionally analog.”
They waited beneath the old departure board.
At eleven fifteen, a light appeared at the far end of the platform.
A woman approached carrying a silver lantern shaped like a bird.
She wore a dark coat and a wide-brimmed hat. Her face remained hidden until she stepped beneath the station clock.
She was perhaps sixty. A thin scar ran from her temple to her jaw.
“My name is Serena Ward,” she said. “Your sister saved my life.”
Rowan’s breath caught.
“Where is Elara?”
Serena did not answer.
Instead, she handed Rowan a small brass key.
“This opens a deposit box at Saint Orison Bank. Your father rented it under a false name.”
“My father knew you?”
“He found me five years after the fire.”
“Why didn’t he find Elara?”
“He came close.”
“What happened to him?”
Serena’s expression darkened.
“The same thing that happened to everyone who came close.”
Officially, Rowan’s father died after losing control of his car on a mountain road.
The weather had been clear.
The brakes had failed.
Rowan had always suspected the accident was not accidental.
“Conrad killed him,” she said.
“I cannot prove Conrad ordered it.”
“But you believe he did.”
“I believe your father called me the night before he died and said he had discovered where Elara was being held.”
“Held?”
“Your sister did not disappear willingly.”
Serena explained that she had worked as an accountant for a city redevelopment office. The documents hidden beneath Bellweather Hall contained her signature. At first, she helped create shell companies without understanding their purpose. When she learned that public property was being sold illegally, she began copying records.
Elara caught her removing files.
Instead of reporting Serena, she agreed to help expose the scheme.
On the night of the fire, Serena was locked inside the archive room.
Elara rescued her.
They escaped through an old utility tunnel.
Audrey followed them.
At the end of the tunnel, men were waiting.
Elara fought them long enough for Serena and Audrey to escape, but she was taken.
“The story your mother told you was incomplete,” Serena said. “Elara never reached your house.”
Rowan felt the station tilt beneath her.
“My mother said she did.”
“Your mother repeated the version Conrad instructed her to repeat.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it is true.”
Serena gave Audrey to Miriam before dawn. She told her Elara was alive but captured. Conrad arrived hours later and forced Miriam to identify the bracelet found in the ruins.
“Why didn’t Audrey tell anyone?” Milo asked.
“She was a child. Conrad convinced her Elara died because Audrey had run away. Guilt made her obedient.”
Rowan remembered Audrey’s words.
Your sister should have stayed dead.
“Does Audrey know Elara survived?” she asked.
“She learned recently.”
“How recently?”
“Three days ago.”
The same day someone entered Elara’s locked room.
Serena looked toward the dark tracks.
“Conrad believes Elara hid a final ledger. It contains payments to judges, council members, police officers, and private security contractors. The half-circle symbol marks locations where pieces of the ledger were hidden.”
“Why was the symbol added to my sketch?”
“To make Conrad watch you.”
Rowan stepped backward.
“You altered it.”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Serena’s eyes moved past Rowan.
Footsteps sounded in the station entrance.
A security light flashed.
Men in black coats entered from both sides.
Serena extinguished the silver lantern.
May you like
“Run,” she said.
The first gunshot shattered the departure board.
