Chapter 8 - No Safe Side
"Down!" Lena shouted.
Nora hit the floor behind a pew. Glass rained over the stone. Adrian pulled Celeste behind the altar while the second guard crawled toward his injured partner. Another shot struck the wooden door, splintering it above the lock.
For the first time, Celeste's expensive calm vanished. "Grant wouldn't—"
"Finish that sentence later," Lena snapped.
She called emergency services and checked the guard's shoulder. The wound was ugly but not fatal. Outside, an engine started. Tires tore through gravel.
By the time police arrived, the shooter was gone.
At the hospital, Celeste sat with a paper cup of coffee she hadn't touched. Nora's dress was dusty, her knuckles scraped. Adrian stood between them, silent.
"You could have gotten us killed," Nora said.
Celeste stared at the coffee. "I thought if I got the papers first, I could trade them for my freedom."
"Freedom from what?"
Celeste lifted her left sleeve. A bruise darkened her wrist in the shape of fingers. "Grant keeps records on everyone. Tax fraud. Affairs. Old mistakes. He calls it insurance. When I threatened to leave, he played me a recording from the night of the fire."
"What recording?"
"Me telling him where Evelyn stored the archive keys." She swallowed. "He said if I ever exposed him, he'd make sure I went to prison for the fire."
Nora felt anger rise, sharp and clean. "You still humiliated me in front of everybody."
"I know. I saw your mother in your face, and I panicked. That doesn't excuse it."
Adrian's phone vibrated. Lena had traced the gunman's getaway car to a parking garage registered to Meridian Holdings. Their strongest link to Grant yet.
Then Celeste handed Nora a folded receipt. "This is from the night Evelyn supposedly confessed. Grant paid for a private medical transport afterward."
"Transport to where?" Nora asked.
Celeste pointed to a destination printed in faded ink: BRIDGEWATER RECOVERY CENTER.
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"My mother died in a highway crash that same night," Nora said.
Celeste looked her straight in the eyes. "That's what Grant told you."
