Chapter 11 - THE CHURCH FIRE
Officer Ruiz didn’t lower her weapon.
Barnes stepped closer.
“Don’t make this worse.”
Ruiz laughed.
“Worse?”
The second officer, Lyle, pointed his gun toward Kelly.
“Give us the phone.”
Kelly held it behind her back.
“No.”
Voss straightened his jacket.
“You see, Jake? Institutions survive because people understand their role.”
Jake glared at him.
“You sound like a comic-book villain.”
Voss almost smiled.
Then Ruiz moved.
She drove her elbow into Barnes’s face.
His gun fired.
BANG.
The bullet hit a wooden pillar.
Jake dropped.
Kelly threw the phone toward him.
“RUN!”
Chaos erupted.
Bell tackled Ruiz.
Lyle chased Jake behind the pews.
Jake crawled between rows as bullets punched into wood.
Voss shouted, “GET THE PHONE!”
Jake reached the side door.
Locked.
He grabbed a brass candle stand and smashed the window.
Glass fell outside.
He climbed through.
Then heard Kelly scream.
He stopped.
Every instinct told him to run.
Instead, he climbed back inside.
Lyle grabbed his jacket.
Jake swung the candle stand.
It hit Lyle’s shoulder.
He dropped his gun.
Kelly kicked it away.
Ruiz had Bell pinned against a pew.
Barnes was bleeding from the nose.
Voss disappeared through the rear door.
Then Jake smelled smoke.
A candle had fallen during the fight.
Flames climbed an old curtain.
“Fire!”
Smoke filled the ceiling.
Barnes ran.
Bell shoved Ruiz away and followed.
Kelly grabbed Jake.
“Where’s the phone?”
“I have it.”
“Then move!”
They stumbled outside as flames spread through the church.
Sirens screamed in the distance.
Real ones this time.
State police.
Kelly had contacted them before meeting Jake.
Voss hadn’t known.
For the first time, Jake believed they might win.
Until Kelly looked at the phone.
The screen was shattered.
“Can you open it?”
Jake pressed the power button.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
“No.”
Kelly closed her eyes.
“The confession.”
“Maybe it saved.”
“Maybe.”
Ruiz stumbled outside coughing.
Jake looked around.
“Where’s Voss?”
Nobody answered.
Dylan suddenly came running from the road with Mark behind him.
“Mom!”
Dylan slammed into Kelly.
She wrapped both arms around him.
For a moment, none of the corruption mattered.
It was just a kid holding his mother.
Then Mark walked toward Kelly.
Nineteen years of questions sat between them.
“You knew.”
Kelly nodded.
“I knew enough.”
“You left me.”
“I was trying to keep Dylan alive.”
Mark’s anger vanished.
Dylan pulled away.
“What do you mean?”
Kelly looked toward the burning church.
Then at her son.
“Because Adam wasn’t the only Cooper they threatened.”
May you like
Dylan went still.
“They threatened you before you were even born.”
