CHAPTER 11 NORA #2
The command hit like a slap, and for one wild second I hated him. Then the phone crackled again, and I clamped both hands over my mouth because if my voice reached Declan at the wrong second, if distraction cost him breath, I had to live with that.
Cormac's jaw tightened. "Audio only. No body cams. Signal is being jammed below ground."
"Find another camera," Gabriel said.
"Old wing cameras are gone. South access has the loop."
I stared at the still photo of the broken-wing dove. Room 213. A family viewing room. The place where hospitals took people after the body stopped being a patient and became a private grief problem.
My father had hated that part most. The room after. The pamphlets. The clean box of tissues waiting before the person was even gone.
A sharp burst of sound came through the speaker. Then Declan.
"Harkin located. Breathing. Aidan, cut him free. Finn, hall."
The breath left me so fast my knees nearly followed. Isabella's arm went around my waist, and I leaned into her before pride could argue.
"Harkin breathing," Declan repeated, rougher. "Repeat, Harkin breathing. He has a pulse."
Gabriel closed his eyes for one second. When he opened them, the room belonged to him again. "Extract. Now."
"Working," Declan said.
Harkin's voice came faintly through the line, slurred and broken. "Nora Brooks?"
I moved toward the phone before anyone could stop me. "I'm here."
Cormac touched the mute button, then looked to Gabriel. Gabriel gave one short nod.
"I'm here," I said again. "Daniel, my name is Nora. My father was Thomas Brooks."
A wet sound came through the speaker, maybe a laugh, maybe pain. "Tom said you'd be trouble."
The words went straight through me.
Isabella's arm tightened hard around my waist. My father had said my name to this man. Before he died, before all the hidden folders and coded phrases, he had pictured me alive enough to be trouble.
"He was right," I said, and my voice broke on the last word.
Harkin coughed again. The sound scraped wetly through the speaker, and Siobhan reached for Gabriel's desk like she could treat a man through wires.
"He said the house opens," Harkin rasped. "Vale. Said the girl opens doors. Said Reeve runs, Stone house opens."
The study went so quiet I heard rain move against the glass.
Gabriel's head turned toward Cormac. "Lock every exterior point again."
"Already locked," Cormac said, but his hands moved faster.
My skin tightened under Declan's door rule. His face. His mouth. Not from a phone voice. He had given me a warning wrapped like care, and Harkin had just put teeth behind it.
Declan came back on. "Nora, listen. He says the override wasn't Maeve. He says M.S. was Mercer Shield, not Maeve Stone. Vendor mask. Mercer used it to make the account read like hers if anyone came hunting."
Gabriel turned toward Cormac. "Confirm."
Cormac was already typing. "Mercer Shield was a dormant continuity vendor. I saw the name in the old hospital board packet. It could produce M.S. on an override audit."
A sound left Isabella, half relief, half anger. "Maeve."
Gabriel's mouth hardened. "Call her. Full line. Now."
Cormac placed the call. Maeve answered immediately this time.
"Gabriel."
"Mercer Shield," he said.
A pause. "A shell vendor. Dead on paper since 2018. Why?"
"Someone used it to frame your initials on Thomas Brooks's transfer."
Maeve's silence changed the room. It was not guilt. I knew enough about guilt by then. This was fury finding somewhere to put its teeth.
"Send me the audit trail," she said.
"You are not touching the trail until Cormac copies it."
"I said send it. I did not say trust me with the only copy."
Gabriel's eyes cut to the speaker. "Maeve."
Her voice dropped. "If someone used my name to move a dying man through a false transfer route, I want their spine for my desk. Let Cormac copy whatever lets you sleep. Then send me enough to hunt."
For the first time that night, I believed her.
A thud came through Declan's line. Finn cursed. The signal dissolved, returned, then sharpened around Declan's breathing.
"Exit route compromised," he said. "They locked the south split behind us. Moving Harkin through chapel stair. He can't run."
Gabriel was already moving toward the weapons cabinet built into the study wall. "Status on opposition?"
"Two down. More above. Vale isn't here. He left men and cameras."
"Leave the cameras. Bring Harkin."
"Copy."
The line crackled again. Aidan shouted something about smoke. Harkin coughed once, hard enough to make the speaker distort.
My skin went cold. "Smoke?"
Siobhan leaned toward the phone. "What color?"
Declan answered between breaths. "White. Chemical sting. Not fire."
"Cleaning agent, maybe," Siobhan said. "Old hospital chemical storage near chapel stair. If they opened it, Daniel's lungs can't take much."
Gabriel looked at Cormac. "Find another exit."
Cormac dragged the floor plan across the screen. "There is a chapel door to the old garden stair, but it was alarmed and sealed."
"It wasn't sealed," I said.
Every face turned toward me.
The roof garden. The last good day. Dad's wheelchair under my hands. The nurse telling us we could not go. Me ignoring her because Dad wanted air. The service stair had been behind the chapel curtain, narrow and cold, with a keypad that stuck on the last digit.
"It wasn't sealed," I said again. "The garden stair was behind the chapel. I used it with Dad. The keypad was broken. You had to press the star key twice, then hold the door while it clicked. It opens near the roof garden."
Cormac stared at me like I had handed him a weapon.
Gabriel turned to the phone. "Declan, chapel curtain. Garden stair behind it. Star key twice on the pad. Hold the door through the click."
For three seconds, there was only static.
Then Declan laughed once, breathless and mean. "Nora Brooks, I could kiss you."
The room froze around me.
Heat hit my face so fast it hurt. Isabella made a strangled sound into my shoulder. Siobhan's brows lifted. Cormac began typing with deep commitment to pretending he had heard nothing.
Gabriel looked at the phone like he was considering whether saving Harkin was worth sparing Declan.
"Use the door," Gabriel said.
"Using it," Declan answered.
The speaker filled with movement. A keypad beeped once, twice, then a stuck mechanical click. A door groaned open. Wind rushed across the line.
"We're out," Finn shouted. "Roof level. Moving to west stair."
My legs weakened. Isabella guided me back into the chair and this time I let her. The bandage on my arm pulsed with my heartbeat. The room smelled of coffee gone cold, antiseptic from Siobhan's kit, and imagined smoke carried to me through a speaker anyway.
Daniel Harkin was alive. Declan was alive. My father had left a roof garden inside a password, and it had opened a door years later.
The relief did not get to settle.
A soft chime came from the study door camera.
Gabriel's head lifted.
Cormac looked toward the security panel mounted beside the bookcase. The small screen brightened, showing the hallway outside the study. Gabriel stood there in his black coat, face angled toward the camera, mouth forming one word.
Declan.
My heart stopped wrong.
Gabriel was inside the room, ten feet from me, one hand already near the gun cabinet.
The image on the screen said Declan's name again without sound.
Open.
Declan's rule slammed through me with the force of his hand around mine. His face. His mouth. Understand?
I moved before fear could pin me down. My good hand hit the manual lock beside the desk and twisted hard. Metal shot into place inside the study door with a deep, final sound.
Gabriel drew his gun.
The false Gabriel on the camera smiled at us through the hallway feed.
Then every light in the townhouse went out.