Chapter 10 - The Price of a Witness

Cole pushed Michael toward the kitchen. "Back stairs. Now."

"I'm not leaving my pictures."

"Take one," Lena said. "Take the one that matters most."

Michael snatched a photograph from the mantel: Daniel grinning at a beach, sand on his knees. Outside, a window shattered. Two men came through the living room with flashlights and dark jackets.

Cole fired into the ceiling above them, buying seconds. "Police! Drop your weapons!"

Neither man obeyed. Nia grabbed Lena's sleeve, and they ran down the stairwell, Michael stumbling between them. The building's smoke alarm began to scream. Somebody had set a fire in the hallway.

On the second landing, Michael stopped. An older neighbor stood behind a half-open door, struggling with a walker as smoke curled around her ankles.

"Mrs. Adler," he said. "She can't take the stairs."

"Keep moving," Cole called from above.

Michael wouldn't. He pulled the woman into the stairwell, guiding her one slow step at a time. Lena went back to help. They reached the street just as firefighters turned the corner.

Nia's car was useless. Its tires had been cut. Across the road, the hospital van waited with its engine running. A man behind the wheel raised a phone and took their picture.

"They want us running," Cole said. "So we run where they can't follow."

They escaped in a fire crew's confusion, squeezing into Cole's truck. Michael rode with Mrs. Adler to the hospital across town, refusing to let the people chasing them decide who deserved help.

Lena called Ivy from a borrowed phone. No answer.

She tried again. Nora answered, sobbing.

"Somebody came to the bait shop," the girl said. "Ivy pushed us through a hole in the fence. She told us to hide by the river. They took her."

"Is Maya with you?"

"Yeah. But she's not waking up right. Her eyes keep closing, and she says everything sounds far away."

Lena gave Nora simple directions to keep Maya still and warm. She told Cole to drive faster. He did.

Then Lena's phone rang from a blocked number.

"I have your nurse," Vale said. "You have something that belongs to me."

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"Let Ivy go."

"Bring me the files, Lena, or I'll make Nora Reed the next name on your list."