Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
At the last second before the door shut, someone grabbed Eliana’s arm. She spun around and saw her sister right behind her.
“You can’t go anywhere,” Maizie said. “Remember, you have to stay with me.”
“This isn’t about running from a bomb. I need to check the vault. I think someone is going to try to break in.”
Maizie shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Eliana told her. “You’re a police captain, and this is a situation that needs a police captain to take control of it. I’m going downstairs where I won’t be in danger of being blown to pieces.”
Maizie let go of her arm.
Eliana turned and ran down the hall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator. But that only reminded her of the dead police officer they’d found at the hospital. Carlos’s partner, murdered because of these people. Because they wanted to use this situation tonight to break into the vault?
There was definitely a big piece of this puzzle that she was missing.
That, and the fact that this seemed like it might be more than one puzzle.
Eliana shook her head, pushing out the door onto the basement level where the vault was. No idea how her mom did this on a regular basis, trying to figure out what people were thinking—what they were planning.
She drew the knife from its sheath, deciding to hold it in her hand. Regardless of what was going on, she wanted to be able to defend herself.
She slowed her step, listening to the faint sound of voices carrying to her. At the corner, she stopped and peered around to where the door of the vault was.
Raquel Maloney had Tony on his knees at the scanner, his eye angled to that green light.
“Insert for stage two.”
She pulled Tony back from the scanner, and he fell to the floor, blood in his hair. More dripping down his beard from his mouth. His hands were bound in front of him. Beaten and barely conscious.
Raquel surveyed the mechanism, then grunted and pulled Tony’s hand up. Inserted his finger to where it would take a drop of his blood and then let her into the vault.
“Stop!” Eliana stepped into view.
She didn’t have a whole lot of loyalty to the Shrine and its secrets, but she knew better than anyone the threat of what lay within that vault and the ways it could destroy people’s lives.
“You aren’t getting in there.”
Raquel looked over her shoulder, sweat on her hairline. Dressed in a green gown—enough of a disguise to get into the gala. But someone should’ve noticed her on the security system. She should never have been allowed entry.
“I’ll give you credit,” Eliana said. “You managed to talk your way into the event and all the way down here before someone realized what you were doing.”
“You think you’re the one who’s going to stop me?”
“Sending in someone with a bomb to turn the gala into chaos was a decent distraction. But that’s all it was. I’m guessing the bomb is a fake?”
Raquel’s expression grew tense for a second, almost as if she didn’t know what Eliana was talking about. “I’m here for one thing only.”
“And what is that?” Eliana wasn’t going to allow her into the vault—and neither was the vault.
The door whirred. “Enter passcode.”
Eliana folded her arms, but that only drew attention to the fact she was holding a knife.
Raquel didn’t have any visible weapons, and there wasn’t much she could hide in that dress. Tony should have had a pistol on him. Wherever it was now, it wasn’t going to come in handy for her.
“I don’t know the code, just in case you’re curious,” Eliana told her.
Raquel smirked. “And if I told you that Wallace will peel your boyfriend’s skin from his body unless you tell me the code, how about then?”
Dread sank in Eliana’s stomach like a rock.
Raquel tipped her head back and laughed. She reached for the keypad and started clicking down keys, each one beeping the sequence she evidently knew. But how had she learned it, except that someone had told her? Doctor Splitfield, maybe. Or Carolena?
Eliana had no idea, and it didn’t matter.
She raced toward Raquel and slammed into her, shoving her against the door and destroying the sequence of numbers she was entering. Raquel screamed and swung back with her elbow, slamming it into the side of Eliana’s head.
“Where is he?!” Eliana screamed the question, grabbing Raquel and flinging her back from the vault door.
The system beeped. “Code error.”
Raquel stumbled and ran back toward her. Tony swung his leg up and tripped her. She hit the floor and he rolled, dragging her to him with his arms around her and his bound hands in front of her.
“Eliana!” he yelled. “Radio in a Code Red.”
“Everyone is upstairs, dealing with the bomb threat!” She moved to the keypad and hit the Cancel button.
Tony flinched, and Raquel started to wiggle out of his hold. He didn’t let her. “Bomb? What bomb?”
“Carolina is upstairs threatening to blow everyone up.” She still had the knife in her hand, each breath feeling like she had to drag it from her lungs. “Show me your hands. I’ll cut you free.”
He turned far enough that she could get the blade between the bindings on his hands. When Raquel tried to move, Eliana leaned down and held the knife to her throat. “Don’t even think about it.”
“As if you have it in you,” Raquel said through gritted teeth.
“I’m discovering all kinds of surprises about myself.”
Tony flipped her onto her front, slamming her against the floor. He held her there and said, “What’s the play here, Detective? You aren’t getting in the vault.”
“It doesn’t matter what you do to me. One way or another, Lydia is going to get her hands on everything inside.” She tried to look at Tony, but he didn’t let her turn her head. “And you know exactly what I mean.”
Eliana didn’t, but right now it wasn’t relevant. “Lydia is the one who sent you down here? Why would she have Carolena try and bomb the gala if her speech was enough of a distraction that you could come down here and get in the vault?”
“What bomb?” Raquel struggled against Tony’s hold. “I don’t know anything about a bomb.”
Eliana scoffed. “I find that hard to believe. It’s chaos upstairs, and everyone is trapped there, believing someone is trying to blow them up.
” Assuming the device was real and not a fake.
But everyone, including Maizie and the police, would have to proceed as if it were.
That meant establishing a perimeter and calling in the local bomb squad.
“I don’t know anything about a bomb! Lydia didn’t tell me.”
Eliana let that sink in. “So she’s the one who ordered you to kidnap Carlos? I thought you were one of the Reverence Sisters.”
“Those psychos! I’m not with them. Haven’t been for a long time.”
“It isn’t as if you turned your life around, and you’re trying to do good. To fight for justice.” Eliana set one hand on her hip. “Seems more like you’re taking cases to throw the evidence off the trail of the woman you work for.”
“And not getting into the vault,” Tony said.
“It’s over, Raquel. Where is Carlos?” Eliana figured Wallace had stayed with him while she came here and broke into the vault. A little insurance in case Eliana tried to stop her. “Does she have a phone? I bet she’s supposed to contact Wallace if something happens and she can’t get in the vault.”
Raquel cried out in frustration.
Tony kept her pinned to the floor while he searched her dress. He discovered the phone strapped just above her knee, pulled it out and handed it to Eliana.
She looked at the screen. “Face ID.” Then walked in a circle around Tony and angled the phone toward Raquel’s face.
It unlocked, and she navigated through to the woman’s call history.
Her messages. “She has a thread with Wallace, but it’s all ‘in position’ and ‘all clear’ and those types of responses. ”
Tony looked up. “Any indication he’s in the museum?”
“No more than him hiding out somewhere else with a gun to Carlos’s head.
” If they really were in the museum, Eliana would be able to find them.
But she couldn’t let Wallace know that Raquel was now in custody.
She had failed. That meant there was no more use for Carlos to remain alive.
“There aren’t any messages about where, locations or addresses. ”
Tony leaned down close to Raquel. “Where is Carlos?”
“You’ll never find him.” Raquel moaned in frustration. “And if I don’t check in with Wallace, he’ll shoot Carlos. If you don’t let me in the vault, he will die.”
“One person’s life isn’t more important than all the secrets contained within the Shrine vault,” he told her.
“We all have to make sacrifices. It’s part of the life that we live.
So don’t think for one second that we’re going to cave to your demands simply because you put the life of one man in danger. ”
Eliana wanted to scream at him. She turned away, moving where Raquel wouldn’t be able to see her. Where she could swipe tears from her face in private.
But she heard Raquel say, “There’s nothing you can do to me that will make me tell you where he is, or call in to Wallace. Carlos is dead no matter what, and—”
Eliana turned back and saw Raquel looking at her.
“—you killed him.”
Tony lifted her a fraction and slammed her head on the floor. She slumped down, out cold. He pushed off the floor and stood, groaning in pain.
“How badly did she hurt you?” Eliana asked.
Tony shook his head. “You know I didn’t mean that about sacrifices. We’re going to do what we can to get him back. Starting with Maizie getting into Raquel’s phone and finding Wallace’s location.”
“Maizie is a little busy right now, dealing with a bomb threat.”
“You were serious about that?”
“Yes!” How many times did she have to explain it? “Bomb threats are always serious!”
“Okay, okay.” He held up his hands. “Let’s go. We can take the phone to her.”
“Before we do that, maybe you could tell me what she meant about what was in the vault. It seemed like she thought you knew what she was talking about. What Lydia supposedly wants.”
Tony looked at her, a dark expression on his face.
“Whoever gets in the vault can force the Board of Governors to vote in their favor. They’ll gain control of everything.
” He let out a quick puff of air and stared at her.
“Is this really the point right now? Why don’t we both do our best to stay alive and leave it at that? No one gets in the vault. Okay?”
He strode toward the elevator, Raquel’s phone in his hand.
Before he could reach for the button, the doors slid open and a gunshot blasted out of the elevator. A flash of light and a sound like a firework. Tony’s body jerked and he stumbled back, falling to one knee.
Blood on his chest.
Eliana screamed, and her neighbor Patience stepped out of the elevator, holding a gun in her hand.
A second later, an explosion ripped through the building above them.