Chapter 11
ELEVEN
vivienne
The passage swallowed her as she descended back into darkness.
Rain still pounded the cave opening behind her, but ahead lay only stone and shadow and the sound of water rising through ancient corridors.
Vivienne’s hands found the walls, following the path she’d memorized from her grandmother’s maps, retracing steps she’d taken minutes ago when Melissa had been with her.
Brooks had gone to get Sullivan. By now they’d be assembling a team, gathering equipment, preparing to enter these tunnels. She needed to find them before they walked into danger they couldn’t see coming.
Her boots splashed through water that had been ankle-deep during the rescue. Now it reached mid-calf. The storm surge was accelerating faster than even she’d predicted. She needed to move quickly.
The compass warmed in her pocket, its needle spinning even without being visible. Emmeline had always said the instrument responded not just to magnetic north but to intention. Right now, Vivienne’s intention burned clear—find Brooks before the Aldriches did.
She paused at a junction where three passages converged.
The left route led back toward the observation grate and the chamber where Melissa had been held.
Straight ahead descended deeper into the network, toward the central hub where the Aldriches stored their contraband.
The right passage climbed, eventually emerging near the lighthouse foundation.
Voices echoed from the left passage—Brooks’s voice, controlled but urgent. Sullivan answering. They’d reached the empty chamber and discovered Melissa was gone. Relief flooded through her. They were alive. They were together. They hadn’t been ambushed yet.
But as she started toward them, a different sound froze her in place.
Footsteps, multiple sets, coming from the central passage.
Not the measured tread of law enforcement but something quicker, more desperate.
Men moving through their territory with the confidence of those who’d walked these routes for generations.
The two groups were about to intersect.
Vivienne pressed herself against the wall, weighing her options.
She could call out, warn Brooks. But that would alert whoever was coming to her presence and possibly trigger a confrontation in these narrow passages where stray bullets would ricochet off stone.
She could try to intercept them herself.
Or she could find another route and try to reach Brooks first.
The footsteps grew louder. She caught fragments of conversation—Gerald Aldrich’s voice, rough and impatient, giving orders. They were evacuating. Taking what they could carry and destroying the rest.
They hadn’t mentioned Melissa. Either they didn’t know she’d escaped, or they’d already written her off as a lost cause. Either way, they were focused on salvaging their operation, not on pursuing a single prisoner through flooding tunnels.
But Brooks and Sullivan were directly in their path.
Vivienne made her decision. She moved quickly back to the right passage, the one that climbed.
Her grandmother’s maps had shown a narrow side route here, barely more than a crawl space, that connected to the chamber where she’d last heard Brooks’s voice.
If she could reach them first, she could warn them. Get them to fall back or find cover.
The passage forced her to her hands and knees. Water flowed past her, running downhill with increasing force. Her dress snagged on rough stone. The pendant at her throat swung forward, its lighthouse stone seeming to glow in the darkness though that had to be her imagination.
Behind her, the voices converged. A shout. The sound of weapons being drawn. Sullivan’s voice: “Drop your weapons! Police!”
She crawled faster. The passage opened into a wider corridor and she stumbled to her feet, running now despite the water trying to sweep her legs out from under her. This was the observation route that would connect back to the main passages.
Flashlight beams cut through the darkness ahead. She skidded to a stop as two figures emerged from a side passage. Gerald Aldrich and another man—Jeremy, she thought, one of the younger generation. Both armed. Both looking desperate.
They’d split up. The voices she’d heard were just some of them. Gerald had taken a different route, one that brought him here, to this junction, at exactly the wrong moment.
“Ms. Hawthorne.” Gerald’s voice carried none of his son’s polish. Just cold brutality. “Convenient. You’re going to tell us where you’ve hidden our property.”
She backed against the wall. The water was waist-deep here, the current strong enough that she had to brace herself to stay upright. Behind Gerald and Jeremy, the passage led deeper into the network. Behind her lay the route to Brooks, but she’d never make it past them.
“Melissa Clarkson is beyond your reach,” she said. “So is the evidence. Your operation is finished.”
“Not yet.” Gerald raised his weapon. “You’re going to take us to both. Starting with the Clarkson woman.”
Jeremy shifted, uncomfortable. He was younger, less hardened than his grandfather. “Maybe we should just go. Cut our losses and—”
“Shut up.” Gerald didn’t take his eyes off Vivienne. “We’ve dealt with Hawthorne women before. You’re not as special as you think.”
“Grandmother caused you problems,” Vivienne said, keeping her voice steady. “Mother asked too many questions. You made them disappear. But you never learned that some things can’t be killed.”
“Everything can be killed.” Gerald’s weapon didn’t waver. “We’ve proven that often enough.”
But Vivienne had learned something from her grandmother that the Aldriches never understood. Death wasn’t an ending. It was a transformation. And right now, she could feel every soul they’d destroyed pressing close, waiting for justice.
She closed her eyes.
The technique was dangerous. Emmeline had warned her repeatedly about dropping every barrier at once, about opening herself completely to the spiritual realm without protection. It left her vulnerable, exposed, at risk of being overwhelmed by the weight of so many voices crying out for vengeance.
But it was also the only way to send a call strong enough to pierce through stone and storm.
Brooks. Northeast junction. Two armed men. Gerald Aldrich. Need you now.
The message tore through her like lightning, pulling energy from reserves she didn’t know she possessed. She felt it reach him—not like words traveling through air but like a door opening between minds, a moment of perfect connection that transcended distance.
And with her barriers down, every spirit in these tunnels flooded in.
They weren’t gentle. Lily Morgan’s fury, seventeen years old and burning with righteous anger.
Cordelia’s grief over the daughter she’d left behind.
Josephine’s determination. Mathilde’s fierce protectiveness.
A customs inspector murdered in 1923. A journalist drowned in 1967.
A federal agent whose car went off a cliff in 1997.
All of them pressing against the veil, demanding to be acknowledged, demanding justice.
Vivienne’s eyes snapped open.
The temperature in the junction plummeted. Frost formed on the walls despite the flooding water. The spirits were manifesting, making themselves known not just to her but to everyone present.
Gerald’s weapon trembled. “What the hell—”
“They’re here,” Vivienne said softly. “Every person you murdered. Every life you destroyed to protect your empire. They’ve been waiting for this moment.”
Jeremy backed against the wall, his face pale, his weapon lowering. “I didn’t—I wasn’t—”
“Quiet!” Gerald snapped, but his voice shook. She saw the fear creeping into his expression as the temperature continued to drop, as the water around them began to steam from the temperature differential, as shapes formed in the mist—translucent figures that pressed closer with every heartbeat.
“This is insane,” Gerald said, but his hand shook so badly he couldn’t aim.
“This is justice.”
From somewhere in the passages behind them, she heard Brooks’s voice shouting her name. He was coming. He’d heard her call and he was coming.
She just had to hold on a little longer.
The spirits pressed closer, their combined rage a palpable force in the confined space. Gerald raised his weapon with both hands, trying to steady it. Jeremy had dropped his gun entirely, his back pressed against the wall, staring at the manifestations with wide, terrified eyes.
“You think ghosts will save you?” Gerald forced the words through clenched teeth. “They’re not real. This is just tricks.”
“Believe what you want,” Vivienne said. “But you can’t escape what you’ve done. Not anymore.”
The sound of running footsteps echoed through the passages. Multiple sets, coming from different directions.
Gerald’s eyes darted, calculating his odds. The water was still rising. The temperature was still dropping. The spirits were still pressing closer. And now armed officers were converging on his position.
He’d run out of options.
“Drop your weapons!” Brooks’s voice rang through the corridor as he emerged from the darkness, his own weapon trained on Gerald. Behind him came Sullivan and two deputies, all armed, all focused.
The standoff lasted three heartbeats. Then Gerald’s nerve broke. He lunged forward, weapon raised, choosing to go down fighting rather than face arrest.
Brooks fired. The shot was precise, disabling rather than killing. Gerald went down into the water, clutching his shoulder, his weapon spinning away into the current.
Jeremy raised his hands immediately, surrendering without a fight.
Sullivan moved in quickly, securing Gerald with practiced efficiency. The younger man was cuffed. Gerald, still bleeding into the water, received first aid from one of the deputies.
Brooks moved to Vivienne’s side, his hand finding her arm. “Are you hurt?”
“Exhausted and my ears are ringing.” Her voice came out as barely more than a whisper. The effort of calling to him, of maintaining contact with so many spirits at once, had drained her completely. “Melissa?”
“I’m sorry for firing my gun so close to you.”
“It’s okay.”
Melissa’s safe. We found her before they could get her out of the tunnels.”
“They found her?”
Brooks nodded. “But she’s safe. She told me what you did. Careless, but we can talk about that later. Come on.”
Relief made her knees weak. Brooks’s grip tightened, supporting her weight.
Around them, the spirits were fading. With the Aldriches captured, with justice finally within reach, their urgent desperation was easing. Vivienne felt them withdrawing, their presence becoming gentler, less demanding.
Lily’s spirit lingered longest. Through the thinning veil, Vivienne felt gratitude, relief, and something like peace. Twenty-five years of waiting, twenty-five years of calling out for someone who could hear, were finally ending.
Thank you, the spirit whispered. Tell my mother I love her. Tell her I can rest now.
“I will,” Vivienne promised.
The temperature began to rise. The frost on the walls melted, running down to join the rising water. The manifestation was complete. The dead had borne witness, and now they could finally let go.
Sullivan was coordinating the evacuation through his radio, arranging for backup and medical support. The water continued to rise, making the tunnels increasingly dangerous. They needed to move.
“Can you walk?” Brooks asked.
“With help.”
He shifted his grip, supporting more of her weight. Together they started back toward the northeast passage, toward the route that would lead them to the surface. Behind them, deputies managed the prisoners, guiding them through water that now reached their chests.
The journey to the cave seemed longer than Vivienne remembered. Every step required concentration she barely had left. But Brooks was there, steady and solid, his presence anchoring her when exhaustion threatened to pull her under.
“Where’s Winston?” she asked, the question suddenly occurring to her.
“Don’t know. We haven’t encountered him. He must have taken a different route out.”
Vivienne felt a flicker of unease, but she was too drained to pursue it. Winston Aldrich was dangerous, calculating, and now desperate. But right now, all she could focus on was putting one foot in front of the other.
When they finally emerged into the cave, rain still poured through the opening but it felt like freedom. Melissa sat wrapped in a thermal blanket, talking to a paramedic. She looked up as they entered, her expression brightening with recognition.
“You made it.”
“We both did.” Vivienne managed a smile. “Thanks to you. The compass led Brooks right to where he needed to be.”
“And the journal,” Melissa said, holding up the leather-bound book. “Martha Morgan’s going to get answers after twenty-five years.”
Vivienne nodded, too tired to speak. Brooks was guiding her to sit, wrapping another thermal blanket around her shoulders. Someone handed her water and she drank mechanically, her body following instructions while her mind floated somewhere distant.
The spirits were quiet now. The urgent pressure that had driven her through these passages was gone, replaced by a different kind of exhaustion—the bone-deep weariness that came from pushing too far, giving too much.
But they’d done it. Melissa was alive. Gerald and Jeremy were captured. Lily’s evidence would finally see the light of day. Justice, delayed for twenty-five years, was within reach.
Brooks sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders touched. Neither spoke. Words seemed unnecessary after everything they’d been through, after the moment when his mind had heard hers across impossible distance.
“You called me,” he said finally. “I don’t know how that’s possible. But I heard you.”
“And you came.”
“Always.” The word carried weight that had nothing to do with solving cases.
Vivienne leaned her head against his shoulder, too tired to maintain the careful distance she usually kept. His arm came around her, holding her steady as emergency personnel moved through the cave, coordinating the evacuation.
Outside, the storm was beginning to ease. The worst had passed. Dawn would come eventually, bringing light to spaces that had hidden in darkness for too long.
But for now, in this cave with rain falling and the sound of the ocean roaring below, Vivienne let herself rest. She’d earned it. They both had.
The dead could finally rest in peace. And maybe, for the first time in years, so could she.