Chapter 8 - Smoke on the Water
Rosalind ran before Tobias could stop her. Heat rolled out of the warehouse doors. Firefighters shouted, and wet ash fell like dirty snow.
“There's a girl inside!” she yelled.
A firefighter seized her arm. “Ma'am, get back.”
Tobias showed the video on Vance's stolen phone. The man studied the painted lighthouse and pointed to a side annex still untouched by flames.
They found Leon's daughter, Mia, behind a locked steel door. She was coughing but alive. Rosalind held her hand while paramedics carried her into the rain.
“Who put you there?” Rosalind asked.
“A man with a broken front tooth.”
“Did he say anything?”
Mia nodded. “He said the lady in the coat wanted to hurry.”
Penelope. The word hung between them.
Sheriff Halden arrived at the ambulance. His gaze moved from Tobias's standing body to Rosalind's face. For a moment he looked old, almost relieved.
“You two are supposed to be dead,” he said quietly.
“Funny,” Rosalind replied. “So is the truth.”
Halden's hand hovered near his radio. Tobias moved a step in front of her.
“Before you call Vance,” he said, “tell us what happened to Evelyn.”
Halden looked toward the fire. “I tried to protect her.”
“By lying?”
“By keeping you alive.”
He handed Rosalind a business card with a handwritten address. “Go there tonight. Ask for Nora Bell. Don't tell anyone I sent you.”
“Why should we trust you?”
“You shouldn't.” Halden's voice cracked. “But your mother made me promise I'd do one decent thing before I died.”
A shot rang out from somewhere across the street. Halden staggered, pressed a hand to his chest, and fell against the ambulance.
As paramedics rushed him away, Rosalind saw a dark car disappear around the corner.
In the ambulance, Mia clutched a disposable oxygen mask and refused to release Rosalind's sleeve. “He said if I told my dad, he'd put my little brother in the water,” she whispered.
Rosalind crouched beside her. “Listen to me. You didn't do anything wrong. What they said was meant to scare you.”
“But he knew my brother's name.”
“He knew how to frighten people. That's all.” She wished she believed it herself.
Leon stood outside the ambulance, his face gray beneath the soot. He looked at Tobias, then at Rosalind. “I spent fifteen years telling myself silence kept my family safe. Turns out silence just made me useful to them.”
Tobias said, “You came when we called. Mia is alive because of that.”
Leon shook his head. “She's alive because your sister saw the lighthouse. Don't turn me into a hero.”
Rosalind squeezed Mia's hand. “Then be a witness.”
Leon's eyes hardened. “I can do that.”
Across the road, yellow tape fluttered like a torn warning. The fire crew had cut a path through the wreckage, and a blackened crate lay split open near the doorway. Rosalind caught sight of a faded label on its side, a shipping number that matched a line on her mother's old recording notes. Even a fire hadn't destroyed all the evidence.
May you like
She memorized the number before a firefighter carried the crate away.
Its license plate was registered to the chapel holding her memorial.
