Chapter 8 - Fire at the Courthouse
We reached the courthouse twelve minutes later.
Smoke already rolled from the basement windows.
Firefighters surrounded the building.
County employees crowded the plaza.
Grant showed his badge and pushed through the barricade.
“The archive room?”
A fire captain pointed toward the east wing.
“Basement level.”
“Sprinklers failed.”
“Electrical doors locked.”
I looked at the smoke.
“This isn’t a fire.”
“No,” Grant said.
“It’s an erasure.”
Rachel stood beside the car wrapped in a deputy’s jacket.
She called out.
“There’s another entrance.”
Everyone turned.
“Richard used it during renovation.”
“A service tunnel connects the courthouse to the old municipal garage.”
Grant frowned.
“That garage was sealed ten years ago.”
“Not completely.”
Richard had built half the county.
He knew every hidden entrance.
Every weak inspection.
Every official willing to look away.
Grant ordered his team toward the garage.
I followed.
He grabbed my shoulder.
“You’re staying outside.”
“My daughter is in that vehicle.”
“The tracker stopped behind the courthouse.”
“You’re not wearing armor.”
“I’ve entered worse places wearing less.”
“That was fifteen years ago.”
I looked at him.
“My daughter was never inside those places.”
He let go.
The municipal garage smelled of mold and gasoline.
A steel maintenance door stood behind a row of abandoned vehicles.
Fresh tire marks crossed the dust.
We entered the tunnel.
Smoke drifted along the ceiling.
The tracker signal blinked ahead.
Forty yards.
Thirty.
Twenty.
We found the silver egg on the floor.
Crushed beneath a boot.
Lily was gone.
A sound echoed from the darkness.
A woman coughing.
I ran toward it.
A locked storage cage stood beside the tunnel.
Inside was Margaret.
Her hands were zip-tied.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
For once, she looked genuinely afraid.
Grant broke the lock.
“Who did this?”
“Mason.”
“Where is Lily?”
Margaret hesitated.
I stepped closer.
“Where is my daughter?”
“He took her into the archive room.”
“Why?”
“He needs Richard.”
I stared at her.
“Richard is in custody.”
Margaret laughed bitterly.
“Not anymore.”
Grant checked his radio.
No response.
Margaret continued.
“Your sheriff’s transport was intercepted.”
“Richard is free.”
Grant’s expression hardened.
“How do you know?”
“Mason told me.”
“Why would he tell you?”
“Because he wanted me to understand that Richard had betrayed us both.”
The words hung in the smoky tunnel.
“What did Richard do?” I asked.
Margaret’s face twisted.
“He made a deal.”
“With whom?”
“Mason.”
“Richard promised him the copied files.”
“In exchange, Mason would kill Lily, Rachel, and you.”
Grant looked toward the archive entrance.
“Then why take Margaret?”
“Leverage,” I said.
Margaret nodded.
“My son believes I kept money hidden from him.”
“Did you?”
She looked away.
That was answer enough.
A muffled gunshot echoed ahead.
Then another.
We moved.
The archive door was open.
Flames climbed one wall.
Shelves of records burned.
At the far end, Richard stood beside Lily.
One arm locked around her neck.
A pistol pressed beneath her jaw.
Mason stood ten feet away holding a fuel can.
They were no longer partners.
They were negotiating.
Richard shouted over the fire.
“You get the files after we leave.”
Mason smiled.
“You don’t have the files.”
“You have a frightened wife and a dead empire.”
Lily saw me through the smoke.
Her eyes widened.
Richard followed her gaze.
He turned the gun toward me.
“Take one more step,” he shouted, “and I kill her.”
I stopped.
Mason looked from Richard to me.
Then he laughed.
“This is better than Easter dinner.”
Richard tightened his hold on Lily.
“You ruined everything, Arthur.”
I kept my hands visible.
“You did that yourself.”
“No.”
“She did.”
He shoved the pistol harder against her face.
“She should have learned when to stay quiet.”
Lily’s fear changed.
Something in her eyes went still.
Richard never noticed her hand moving toward a burning shelf.
She grabbed a metal bookend.
Then she drove it backward into his knee.
Richard screamed.
The gun fired.
May you like
And Lily fell into the smoke.
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