Chapter 6 - Behind the Walls

The first blow against the control-room door shook dust from the ceiling.

"Can you call the police?" Claire asked.

"Already did," Lena said. "But Pike's telling dispatch this is a private medical emergency. We need proof they can't talk away."

She plugged a thumb drive into the security console and copied the garage footage. A second blow bent the door near the lock.

"There's a crawlspace behind that cabinet," Lena said. "Go."

Ethan dragged the cabinet aside. Claire crawled into darkness that smelled of hot wiring. Lena followed, pulling the cabinet back with a cable loop. Behind them the door gave way.

"Spread out!" Pike barked.

The three of them lay flat, holding their breath as boots crossed the floor inches away. Claire heard Pike order someone to disable all cameras on the lower floors.

"And find the woman," he added. "Mrs. Vale says her son is expendable."

Ethan shut his eyes.

They crawled until Lena pushed open a vent above a service elevator. One by one they dropped onto its roof. As the elevator rose, Claire gripped the edge and watched light slide past the shaft doors.

"Tell me something," she said to Ethan. "When you signed the Riverbend report, did you know the exits were chained?"

"Not then."

"When did you know?"

"Three days later."

Claire stared at him. "Three days after fourteen people died?"

"I went to the building. I saw the chains in a dumpster. My mother said investigators had already cleared the site. She said the form was just insurance paperwork."

"And you believed her?"

"I wanted to."

The elevator stopped. Lena forced a hatch above the tenth floor. They scrambled into a linen storeroom.

Claire took the memory card from its hidden seam, so tiny it seemed impossible that it could hold the ruin of an entire family.

"I didn't just sign the report," Ethan said.

She closed her fist around the card.

"Ethan."

"My mother told me the camera footage would traumatize the families. She said it needed to be destroyed."

Claire felt suddenly cold.

"You erased the footage?"

"I thought I did," he said. "Until Ruth called me last week. She said someone saved a second recording."

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Lena's phone lit up with a security alert. One line flashed:

VALE TOWER: SYSTEM LOCKDOWN AUTHORIZED BY ETHAN VALE.