Chapter 15 - What He Could Not Say
Ruiz fired into the electronic lock. Sparks spat from the panel. Mara grabbed the cell door and pulled until it slid open.
Samuel Vale staggered into her arms. He smelled of antiseptic and the soap she remembered from childhood. For one impossible second, she was eleven again.
“I buried you,” she sobbed.
“I know.” His voice broke. “I'm so sorry.”
“Where have you been?”
“Graham needed me alive. I built the original ventilation control system. I know where the orders came from.”
June shouted from the corridor. “We've got company!”
They ran through a loading bay, Samuel leaning on Mara. Two guards emerged near the exit. Ruiz shoved a metal cart into one and disarmed the other. The three of them reached June's van as its rear door opened.
Samuel coughed until he could barely breathe. Mara wrapped a blanket around him. His hands shook badly.
“Dad, did Evelyn Cross lock those doors?”
Samuel's eyes filled. “Yes. But she did it after the fire started, to keep a sealed chamber from flooding the upper floors with poison. The override failed. Graham had disabled it.”
“So she was trying to save people?”
“She made the wrong choice under impossible pressure. Graham engineered the choice.”
Mara closed her eyes. The truth was uglier than a single villain and a single victim.
“Why did he keep you?” Ruiz asked.
“Because I could testify that the fire suppression system had been sabotaged. He tried to make me sign a confession that I planted the poison.”
“Did you?”
“Never.”
June swore at her phone. “Meridian has locked down early. Adrian and Lily are already inside.”
Samuel seized Mara's wrist. “The server isn't the only evidence. Graham kept a physical backup in the tower's emergency control room. He never trusts computers.”
“Then we go,” Mara said.
Samuel shook his head. “He knows you're coming. I heard the guards talking.”
Mara looked down at her ringing burner phone. Adrian's name wasn't on the screen. Just a video call.
She answered.
May you like
Lily appeared with a bruise on her forehead and a gun against her cheek.
Graham's voice said, “Bring me my son, Mara, or I start with your sister.”
