Chapter 7 - Eighty-Two Percent
They ran through the service tunnel while the archive continued opening behind them.
Claire carried Noah.
Adrian carried Mia.
The image bothered Claire more than she wanted to admit.
Mia’s small arms were wrapped around his neck as if she had done it a hundred times.
He whispered something into the child’s ear.
She nodded.
Claire looked away.
At the end of the tunnel, Cross opened a steel door leading into the church cemetery.
Snow had deepened.
Sirens wailed somewhere in town.
“Police?” Claire asked.
Cross shook his head. “Could be fake.”
Adrian set Mia down behind a stone angel.
“We need to stop the archive remotely.”
“Can you?”
“If I reach a Lantern terminal.”
Cross laughed. “There are no Lantern terminals anymore.”
Adrian looked at him. “There is one.”
Cross understood.
“No.”
Claire hated that word tonight. “Where?”
Adrian looked toward downtown.
“County courthouse basement.”
Claire blinked. “You hid a federal spy terminal under the county courthouse?”
“Lantern did.”
“Same difference.”
Cross pointed toward the road. “We won’t get there on foot.”
Headlights appeared at the cemetery gate.
Everyone ducked.
A battered pickup rolled slowly forward.
The driver’s window lowered.
Father Michael, the seventy-year-old priest who had baptized half the town, leaned out.
“You people planning to freeze to death?”
Claire stared at him.
Adrian muttered, “Of course he’s involved.”
Father Michael frowned. “I heard that.”
They piled into the pickup.
As they drove, Claire looked at the priest. “How much do you know?”
“Enough to regret every favor I ever did for your husband.”
Adrian leaned forward. “Can you get us into the courthouse?”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Adrian waited.
Father Michael sighed. “Which means yes.”
Mia sat beside Claire, staring at Noah.
“Can I touch his hand?”
Claire hesitated, then nodded.
Mia held out one finger.
Noah’s tiny hand curled around it.
Mia smiled.
The softness of it almost broke Claire.
Then Mia whispered, “Mom said I had a brother.”
Claire turned to her. “Your mother told you that?”
Mia nodded.
“When?”
“Before the bad men took her.”
Adrian spun around. “Mia, your mother is alive?”
The girl nodded again.
Cross stared at Adrian.
Claire’s heart began pounding.
“Where is she?” Adrian asked.
Mia pointed toward downtown.
“In the building with the clock.”
The courthouse.
Father Michael’s hands tightened on the wheel.
Then the radio crackled.
A woman’s voice came through.
Evelyn Shaw.
“Adrian, if you’re hearing this, stop running.”
A pause.
“I have Lena.”
May you like
Another pause.
“And she has been waiting seven years to tell you who Mia’s real father is.”
