Chapter 16 - Fire in the Archive
Doreen fired at the speaker.
The shot shattered plastic and sent sparks from the wall.
Then the fire alarm erupted.
Red strobes flashed.
Mae pressed her good hand against her bleeding shoulder.
“Leah, go.”
Smoke seeped beneath the archive door.
Rusk had disappeared.
“She lit the records,” Mae said.
Doreen’s face twisted. “Celia, you idiot.”
The lights flickered.
Leah pushed through the emergency exit carrying Noah.
Behind her, Doreen grabbed Mae by the hair.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Leah turned back.
Mae screamed, “Don’t!”
But Leah could not leave her.
She set Noah’s carrier behind a concrete pillar, then swung a fire extinguisher at Doreen.
Doreen ducked.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Mae kicked it beneath a cabinet.
Flames rolled across the ceiling of the archive room.
Years of stolen lives burned in cardboard boxes.
Simone’s voice echoed from the stairwell. “Leah!”
She appeared with Detective Ruiz and two officers.
Doreen ran.
“Get Mae!” Leah shouted.
Ruiz chased Doreen while Simone lifted Noah’s carrier.
Nathan came down the opposite stairwell, coughing.
“Where’s my mother?”
Leah pointed.
He started after her.
Then a section of burning ceiling collapsed between them.
Leah jumped back.
Nathan vanished behind smoke.
“Nathan!”
No answer.
Ruiz’s radio crackled.
“Suspect moving toward the river service tunnel.”
Leah remembered her nightmare.
The river.
Noah slipping away.
Doreen beneath a white umbrella.
She looked at Simone.
“Take my baby outside.”
Simone grabbed her arm. “Absolutely not.”
Leah pulled free.
“Nathan is down there.”
“And Doreen has a gun.”
Leah stared into the smoke.
May you like
“So do the people chasing her.”
Then, from somewhere below, Nathan screamed.
