Chapter 13 - The Lighthouse
Rebecca ordered everyone to stay low. Two agents moved toward the stairwell while Lorenzo pulled Mia behind the concrete base of the lamp.
A voice came through the door.
“Lorenzo. Send the girl down.”
Peter Vale.
Mia's hands shook. “Is he my uncle?”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“Then why does he want me?”
“Because your mother trusted him once. He thinks you know where she hid the last piece.”
Peter called again. “Anna left something with the child. A phrase, a number, a name. I know she told you.”
Mia shook her head.
Lorenzo studied her face. “Did she?”
“She told me a bedtime story,” Mia whispered. “About a blue bird that couldn't find its way home.”
Luca looked at her sharply. “What happened to the bird?”
“It followed the moon.”
“That's not a code,” Lorenzo said.
“Maybe it is,” Mia replied. “Mom said the moon was the only thing that never belonged to anyone.”
Rebecca found a small recorder in the waterproof case. The audio file began with Anna's voice, speaking the same story. At the end, she gave a string of numbers.
Luca recognized them as the coordinates of a storage vault beneath the old train station.
The lighthouse door shook under a heavy blow.
“Move!” Rebecca shouted.
Agents opened the lower hatch and guided Mia and Luca down a maintenance ladder. Lorenzo stayed behind long enough to jam the door with a steel bar. Peter fired through the wood. Splinters struck Lorenzo's cheek.
He reached the hatch just as the bar snapped.
A hand grabbed his ankle.
Peter.
Lorenzo kicked free and dropped into the passage. Rebecca sealed the hatch from below.
They escaped through a drainage tunnel and emerged on the rocky shore. A helicopter circled overhead, searching.
Mia looked at the lighthouse.
“He won't stop,” she said.
“No,” Lorenzo answered. “But neither will we.”
Then Rebecca's phone rang.
May you like
The storage vault had been opened.
Someone had beaten them there.
