Chapter 9 - The Girl in the Red Coat

Ruby Bell was seventeen now, tall and wary, with a scar running from her left ear into her hairline. She met Naomi outside the public library, hands buried in the pockets of the same red coat she had worn the night Briar House burned.

"You kept it," Naomi said.

"Mom wanted to throw it out. I couldn't."

They sat beside a window overlooking the bus stop. Danny, now eleven, sat between them with a dinosaur book on his knees.

"I saw the video," Ruby said. "The one from the gala. You hit her pretty hard."

"She tried to kick me."

"I know. I watched it twelve times."

Ruby's face changed. "I should've told somebody about the fire."

"You were fourteen."

"I knew the lady in the pale coat. She came to inspect the building a week before everything happened. She got mad at your mom for asking why they put locks on the stairs."

Naomi leaned closer. "Vanessa Sterling?"

Ruby nodded. "The fire started downstairs. Danny and I went toward the back exit, but the door wouldn't open. Elena came running up. She put her shoulder against it. She kept saying, 'Go back up. Find a window.'"

Danny closed his book. "She told us to hold hands."

"What happened next?" Naomi asked softly.

"Somebody opened the loading-bay gate," Ruby said. "We crawled through. The man in the black jacket pulled us outside. He told us not to look back. But Danny did."

Danny drew a shaky breath. "The lady was on the phone."

"What did she say?"

He stared at the dinosaur on his book cover. "I don't wanna get anybody in trouble."

"You won't," Naomi said. "And you can stop whenever you want."

"She said, 'Not until she's out of the server room.' Then the other guy said there were kids inside. She said, 'They aren't our problem.'"

Ruby reached for her brother's hand.

Naomi's eyes burned. Her mother hadn't died because nobody knew she was inside. Someone had known there were children trapped, too.

Across the street, a black SUV slowed. Danny saw it first.

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"That's the car," he whispered. "The one that followed us yesterday."

Then the rear window rolled down, and Detective Weller pointed straight at them.