Chapter 7 — She Never Saved Me

“You’re dead,” I said.

Celeste turned toward the sound of my voice.

On the screen, she looked almost pleased to see me.

“Oh, Nora. You always did believe the first explanation that frightened you.”

A shot struck the cabinet above my head.

I flinched, pressing harder against the wounded guard’s side.

Jericho shifted in front of us.

“Tell your men to stop shooting.”

Celeste glanced beyond the camera.

The gunfire ceased.

The silence that followed was worse.

Water dripped somewhere in the dark. The guard beneath my hands struggled to breathe. Mateo stayed by the doorway, weapon raised.

Jericho held the phone where I could see it.

Rosie stared at the camera.

“Daddy, I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Celeste rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder.

Rosie shrank beneath it.

I looked at the woman I had once trusted with every secret I owned.

“The explosion.”

“A damaged car. A fire. People who were paid to look in the wrong direction.”

Jericho’s face didn’t change.

“You let our daughter believe you were dead.”

“She was supposed to accept it.”

“She’s seven.”

“Yes,” Celeste said. “And considerably more observant than either of you.”

I heard myself ask, “Paul?”

Her attention returned to me.

“He found discrepancies he wasn’t willing to ignore.”

“You killed him.”

“He should have accepted the arrangement.”

“And the twelve million?”

“A beginning.”

The words came easily to her.

Five years of fear reduced to a conversation she appeared to find mildly inconvenient.

“You called me before I went to his apartment,” I said. “You knew what I would find.”

“I needed your fingerprints somewhere other than a keyboard.”

I remembered touching the door.

The chair beside his body.

His wrist, searching for a pulse.

Celeste arriving with cash and documents while I was still shaking.

“You never saved me.”

She tilted her head.

“I kept you alive.”

“So you could use me again.”

This time, she smiled.

“There you are.”

Jericho took a step toward the door.

Mateo raised one hand.

Not yet.

Celeste watched her husband.

“I need Nora and the ledger. You’ll receive a location.”

“Why her?”

“Because she designed the recovery system for the accounts. Removing her authorization would have locked me out of everything I was trying to preserve.”

I stared at her.

The foundation system had required independent approval for restoring access. My own authorization had been kept separate from routine transfers.

“You built other accounts around it.”

“I expanded what you gave me.”

“And couldn’t complete the recovery without me.”

“I had hoped you would be easier to persuade.”

“Five years of surveillance wasn’t enough?”

“Finding you was never difficult, Nora.”

Jericho’s grip tightened around the phone.

“Release Rosie. I’ll bring whatever you need.”

Celeste looked down at her daughter.

“Not until I know I have it.”

Rosie’s eyes closed.

I leaned toward the screen.

“Rosie. Listen to me.”

Celeste frowned.

“Lennox,” the child whispered.

“Yes. I’m here.”

I made myself smile.

“Remember the rabbit with armor?”

A tiny nod.

“Keep him in your head.”

Celeste moved the camera away.

“You have one hour to leave the property. Elias will allow it. If you contact anyone before I send instructions, I’ll know.”

The screen went black.

For a moment, Jericho stood without moving.

Then he put the phone in his pocket.

“Mateo. Get us out.”

The maintenance door was locked from the other side.

One of the guards found a narrow access hatch behind a fallen panel. It opened onto a service passage partly flooded by seawater.

Mateo covered the doorway while two men lifted the wounded guard.

His name was Daniel.

I learned it when Jericho told him to stay awake.

We moved through water deep enough to soak my shoes.

The ledger was inside Mateo’s vest. I had the recorder in my bag.

Nobody spoke unless they had to.

Halfway through the passage, a shot struck the wall near the hatch behind us.

Jericho pushed me forward.

Something hit him hard enough to turn his shoulder.

He kept moving.

At the end of the passage, a rusted ladder led to an exterior platform.

We climbed into the night.

A second team met us near the shoreline. Mateo had used a short-range radio once we were clear of the building.

Daniel was carried into a waiting vehicle.

Jericho tried to follow.

I caught his sleeve.

Blood darkened the fabric below his shoulder.

“You’re hurt.”

“It can wait.”

“No.”

His eyes met mine.

I had never seen anger and terror held so tightly together.

“Rosie can’t,” he said.

“Then don’t bleed out before we reach her.”

Mateo opened the car door.

“Get in. The doctor is coming to the house.”

Jericho sat.

I climbed in beside him and pressed a clean dressing from the vehicle’s medical kit against the wound.

He barely reacted.

His phone was already at his ear.

No answer.

He tried another number.

Then another.

I watched the screen reflected in the window.

Home.

Gate.

Mrs. Alden.

Nothing.

By the time we reached the mansion, Mateo’s men had secured it.

Two guards had been found unconscious near a service entrance. A third was missing.

The interior system had recorded the front hallway for twenty minutes while displaying an older image of the upstairs corridor.

Celeste had used a maintenance access route that never appeared on the main gate camera.

I didn’t ask how many permissions had survived her supposed death.

I could see the answer in Jericho’s face.

Mrs. Alden was found in a locked laundry room.

Alive.

Rosie was gone.

The doctor took Jericho into a downstairs bedroom while another team searched the grounds.

I stayed beside the bed.

The bullet had grazed his upper arm. The doctor cleaned and dressed it, then gave instructions Jericho clearly wasn’t hearing.

When we were alone, he looked at the wall.

“She knew.”

I sat beside him.

“Rosie?”

“She knew Celeste was alive.”

“Not what Celeste was doing.”

“She could have told me.”

“She tried.”

His head turned sharply.

“The drawings,” I said. “The nightmares. Not wanting to see Vane. She was trying with what she had.”

“I asked her.”

“And someone told her you would die if she answered.”

He looked away.

I let the silence settle.

Then I said, “You can be angry with Celeste. You can be angry with Vane. You cannot make a frightened child responsible for outsmarting them.”

His uninjured hand covered his face.

“I’m her father.”

“Yes.”

“I should have known.”

“You know now.”

He lowered his hand.

The look he gave me was stripped of everything he used to keep people away.

“I don’t know how to lose her.”

I took his hand.

“We haven’t lost her.”

He held on so hard it hurt.

I didn’t pull away.

Mateo returned with the coat Rosie had been wearing.

It had been found near the rear door.

Her blue bow was in one pocket.

Jericho took it without speaking.

I watched his thumb move over the ribbon.

Blue.

The crayon.

Something shifted in my memory.

Rosie’s hand reaching toward the broken pieces.

Stopping.

You can keep them.

I stood.

“What?” Jericho asked.

“My apron.”

I went upstairs and pulled open the box containing my work clothes.

The apron lay beneath two folded shirts.

I reached into the pocket.

Both pieces were still there.

One was almost entirely wax.

The other felt different.

I carried them downstairs.

Jericho stood when he saw my face.

I used the edge of a butter knife to peel away the blue coating.

The wax broke beneath my fingers.

A tiny black storage card slid onto the table.

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Jericho looked at the coat in his hand.

“She gave you something.”

“Yes.”

“At the restaurant.”

I remembered Rosie sitting beneath the chandeliers, making herself small while everyone looked away.

I had thought I was the only person helping someone that night.

Now I understood.

She had been trying to help me too.