Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Watched from Across the Street
Clara refused to believe Mrs. Alvarez was involved.
For six years, Elena Alvarez had lived next door. She made cinnamon bread on Sundays, drove Rose to medical appointments, and kept a spare key to the Bell house. She had taught Clara how to sew buttons and had once spent an entire night searching the neighborhood when Clara’s cat disappeared.
“She would never hurt us,” Clara said.
Daniel placed the tracking device inside a metal cookie tin. “People can be used without knowing it.”
“Then we ask her.”
“We watch first.”
From the apartment window above the bookstore, they could see the Bell house two blocks away through Daniel’s long-lens camera. Police tape covered the broken kitchen window. An unmarked car sat at the curb.
At nine in the morning, Mrs. Alvarez crossed the street carrying a casserole dish. She spoke to an officer, pointed toward the house, and wiped tears from her face. Nothing about her seemed threatening.
Then a woman in a red scarf appeared at the bus stop across from her.
Mrs. Alvarez saw the woman and went completely still.
The casserole dish slipped from her hands.
The woman in the red scarf did not approach. She simply touched two fingers to her throat, then boarded a bus.
Mrs. Alvarez hurried home.
Daniel zoomed in on the sidewalk. Beneath the broken dish lay a folded note.
Twenty minutes later, Clara’s temporary phone rang.
Mrs. Alvarez was crying so hard she could barely speak.
“Clara, sweetheart, I need you to listen. I did not know what was inside the backpack. A woman paid me to replace the zipper. She said it was a surprise from your grandmother.”
“Who was she?”
“I never learned her name. She knew things about my son in Mexico. She knew his address. This morning she left a message saying they will hurt him unless I bring them the locket.”
Daniel motioned for Clara to keep her talking.
“Where are you supposed to go?” Clara asked.
“The old greenhouse at Ashford Park. Noon.”
“We will help you.”
“No. The note says come alone.”
“They always say that,” Daniel muttered.
Detective Mara Quinn arrived within thirty minutes, wearing jeans and carrying coffee for everyone. Daniel distrusted her openly. Mara ignored him and spread a city map across the bookstore floor.
Ashford Park had once belonged to the foundation. Its greenhouse had been closed after a chemical leak, but underground utility tunnels still connected it to the original children’s clinic and, farther south, the new ballroom complex.
“The same tunnels may lead to the ledger vault,” Mara said.
Daniel pointed to three entrances. “Victoria will expect police at the main gate.”
“She will not expect police,” Mara replied, “because officially I am not here.”
Clara looked between them. “My mother contacted both of you. Why did she keep you separate?”
Neither answered immediately.
Mara finally said, “Because one of us may be compromised.”
At noon, Mrs. Alvarez entered the greenhouse carrying Clara’s locket.
It was a copy Daniel had made from brass and silver in the bookstore’s basement workshop. The real locket remained beneath Clara’s shirt.
Clara watched through a camera hidden in Mrs. Alvarez’s coat button.
The greenhouse was filled with dead vines and broken glass. Rainwater collected in rusted planting tables. A woman stepped from behind a wall of plastic sheeting.
She wore the red scarf.
“Put the locket on the table,” she said.
Mrs. Alvarez obeyed. “Where is my son?”
“Safe, if you stop asking questions.”
The woman opened the copy and found no key.
Her calm disappeared.
“You brought me a fake.”
Mrs. Alvarez backed away. “That is what Clara gave me.”
The woman drew a pistol.
Mara moved first, entering through a side door with her weapon raised. Daniel came from the opposite direction. The woman fired once, shattering a pane above Mrs. Alvarez’s head, then vanished through a trapdoor beneath a planting table.
They followed into the tunnel.
The passage smelled of wet concrete and old chemicals. Electrical cables ran along the ceiling. After fifty yards, the tunnel split.
On the wall, someone had painted a small blue crown with one star upside down.
Clara’s secret map.
Her mother had been there.
Beneath the crown were three fresh words.
TRUST THE CHILD, NOT HART.
Daniel stared at the message.
Mara whispered, “That paint is still wet.”
A metal door slammed somewhere ahead.
Clara ran toward the sound before either adult could stop her.
The tunnel ended in a hidden observation room overlooking the greenhouse. Monitors covered one wall. On the largest screen was a live feed from Rose’s hospital room.
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Rose slept beneath a white blanket.
A nurse entered carrying a syringe.
