Chapter 7 - THE TUNNEL BENEATH THE CITY
Rowan and Milo followed Serena onto the tracks.
Another shot struck the platform behind them.
Serena pulled open a maintenance door concealed beneath the platform edge. They descended a narrow staircase into darkness while the men shouted above.
The tunnel smelled of rust and flooded earth.
Serena led them through waist-high water, using the silver lantern only when they reached intersections.
“You planned an escape route,” Milo said.
“I planned six.”
“Please tell me one ends near our car.”
“Your car is already being searched.”
They continued for nearly twenty minutes.
Behind them, voices echoed through the tunnel.
The pursuers had found the entrance.
Serena stopped at a rusted steel gate.
The brass key she had given Rowan fit the lock.
“This key opens more than the bank box,” she said.
Beyond the gate was a hidden chamber containing old maps, emergency supplies, and filing cabinets sealed in plastic.
On one wall hung photographs of Conrad Vale meeting judges, contractors, and city officials.
Among them was a photograph of Elias Voss.
He stood beside Conrad outside Bellweather Hall two days before the fire.
Rowan tore the image from the wall.
“Elias worked with him.”
“He worked for the city attorney’s office,” Serena said. “He approved the first redevelopment transfer.”
“So he is part of this.”
“He was.”
“You trust him?”
“No. But Elara did.”
The voices in the tunnel grew louder.
Milo searched the chamber for another exit.
Rowan noticed a memorial blueprint spread across a table.
It was an earlier version of her design.
The paper was yellowed with age.
At the bottom, a date had been written twelve years earlier.
The creator’s initials were E.H.
Elara Hale.
Rowan touched the drawing.
Her sister had designed the memorial before the fire.
Seven pillars.
One suspended circle.
The concept had lived in Rowan’s memory because Elara had shown it to her as a child.
Audrey had not copied Rowan alone.
She had copied Elara too.
“Why does Conrad care about the design?” Rowan asked.
Serena pointed to the seven pillars.
“The foundation coordinates.”
Each pillar position corresponded to a location in the city.
Seven hiding places.
Seven sections of the missing ledger.
“The competition is not about a memorial,” Rowan said.
“It never was,” Serena replied. “Conrad funded the project so he could control the excavation of the site. Audrey’s design was supposed to guide his people to the ledger before construction began.”
“But Audrey used my exact submission.”
“Because someone sent it to her.”
“Who?”
A violent blow shook the steel gate.
The men had reached the chamber.
Serena opened a floor hatch.
“Ask Audrey.”
Milo climbed down first. Rowan followed, clutching Elara’s drawing.
Serena remained above.
“Aren’t you coming?” Rowan asked.
“I have to close the route.”
“You’ll be trapped.”
“That is why I built another.”
Serena pressed the silver lantern into Rowan’s hands.
“Your sister told me that if you ever carried this, you would know whom to trust.”
“I don’t know whom to trust.”
“Exactly.”
Serena slammed the hatch.
Rowan and Milo descended into a drainage shaft as the steel gate broke open overhead.
The shaft ended beside the river, three streets from the memorial site.
By the time they emerged, police sirens were approaching the station.
Milo looked back toward the tunnel.
“Do you think Serena escaped?”
Rowan examined the lantern.
Inside the base, something rattled.
She unscrewed the metal plate and found a memory card taped beneath it.
On the card, written in tiny black letters, was a date.
It was tomorrow’s date.
May you like
Beneath it was a single instruction.
Watch Audrey confess.
