Chapter 8 - Fourteen Names

Claire made Lena pull over two blocks from the river.

"I'm going in," she said.

"With what?" Ethan asked. "One borrowed pair of boots and an angry face?"

"That's more than I had when your mother swung at me."

Nina called again. She had found the location of Ruth's evidence locker in the old Union Station freight annex. It was nine blocks away, close enough to reach before midnight if they moved fast.

"Ruth left something else," Nina said. "A real recording, not just files you can argue were altered. She told me the combination is the number of people who died, followed by the date."

Fourteen. November third. Claire would never forget either number.

They found the freight annex locked. Lena picked the side-door latch with a strip of metal from her tool bag. Inside, cold fluorescent lights hummed over rows of lockers.

Number 203 opened with a reluctant click.

A battered silver phone sat inside a lunchbox, wrapped in a dish towel. There was also a folded piece of paper: fourteen names, written in a woman's tight handwriting. Tommy's name was number nine.

Claire traced it with one finger.

"I told him I'd pick him up that night," she said. "I had car trouble. He went home with a neighbor."

Ethan reached for her. She stepped aside.

Nina joined by video as Lena powered on the phone. A recording played, frighteningly ordinary.

"Rear exits?" a guard asked.

"Chain them until the inspectors leave," answered a voice Claire recognized from the tower. Pike.

"There are still families upstairs."

"Then tell them to use the front. That's above your pay grade."

A siren sounded. Someone yelled that smoke was coming through the stairwell. A boy shouted, "Open the door! There's a kid in here!"

Tommy.

Claire sat down on the concrete floor. For nine years she'd imagined her brother afraid and alone. Now she knew he'd been trying to help somebody else.

Lena crouched beside her. "We're going to make them answer for that."

The silver phone vibrated.

May you like

THEY DECLARED HER DEAD—THEN ORDERED HER CREMATED WHILE SHE WAS STILL ALI...

They were about to burn her alive.Her death certificate had already been signed. Her body was scheduled for immediate cremation. A...

She Pushed a Pregnant Woman in a Wheelchair Into the Pool—Then Her Husba...

She was pregnant. She was in a wheelchair. And the woman standing behind her was smiling.Seconds later, one brutal shove sent her...

My Mother-in-Law Slapped Me While I Was Pregnant at Christmas—But She Ne...

My mother-in-law slapped me across the face in front of the entire family. I was eight months pregnant, standing in the middle of...

A final unsent text appeared on its screen, addressed to Claire:

I SAW WHO STARTED THE FIRE. IT WASN'T PIKE.