Chapter 12 - Locked Underground
The steel door slammed shut.
The magnetic lock engaged with a heavy clunk.
Darla ran to the keypad. “Tell me this has an inside release.”
“It should,” Miriam said.
“It doesn’t.”
The lights went out.
Emergency red lamps flickered on.
Eli stood very still.
Jax touched his shoulder. “You okay?”
“I hate basements.”
“Me too.”
“That true?”
“No.”
Eli gave him a tiny, terrified smile.
Miriam found the maintenance panel. “Electronic lock. Whoever closed us in also killed external network access.”
Vince looked at the ceiling. “Air?”
“Limited.”
Jax checked the time.
Cole’s deadline kept moving whether they did or not.
He looked at box 417.
“We’re already here. Open the housing.”
“With what fingerprint?”
“Not the box. The wall around it.”
Vince grinned.
Five minutes later, they had removed a steel service panel beside the lockers.
Behind it ran conduit, wiring, and an old maintenance shaft barely wide enough for a person.
Darla looked at Jax. “Absolutely not.”
Eli said, “I fit.”
“No,” three adults said at once.
But Miriam inspected the shaft.
“It runs six feet to an access room. Straight line. No moving machinery.”
Jax hated the idea before she finished.
Eli held out his hand. “I can do it.”
Jax wanted to say no.
Then he remembered being eight and watching Cole bully Hannah in the backyard. Jax had stood between them even though Cole was twice his size. Fear had not made him useless. It had made the choice matter.
Jax tied a cord around Eli’s waist and gave him a flashlight.
“Slow. If I pull twice, come back.”
Eli crawled into the dark.
Thirty seconds.
Forty.
Then the cord went slack.
“Eli?”
No answer.
Jax’s heart stopped.
“Eli!”
A metal bang sounded beyond the wall.
Then the vault door released.
Eli stood on the other side beside an emergency lever, grinning.
“Told you.”
Jax pulled him into a fierce hug before he could stop himself.
Eli froze, then hugged back.
They hurried upstairs.
The branch manager was unconscious but breathing. A security monitor showed a man leaving through the front entrance two minutes earlier.
Sheriff Bell.
On the manager’s desk lay a handwritten note.
Jax read it aloud.
YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES NOW.
Beneath the message was something else.
A photograph of Jax holding baby Eli.
But this copy had been taken from a wider angle.
May you like
Standing beside Jax in the original frame was Aaron Carter.
And behind Aaron was Cole.
