CHAPTER 16 DECLAN #2
Nora's eyes lifted to mine, and for one beat the cold room fell away. Her grip on my sleeve tightened. My pulse hit hard enough to make my ribs feel too small.
"Declan," Cormac said in my ear, dragging the world back by the throat.
"I found Saint Brigid in the archived acquisition records.
Chapel wing sold to Mercy Women's Foundation nine years ago.
Basement listed as sealed due to contamination.
Maeve's donor packet includes access to Mercy Foundation events and clinic records. "
"Send it to Gabriel."
"Already done. Maeve is on her way to command and furious enough to be useful."
Aidan muttered, "Lovely. Always wanted a building full of ghosts and an angry Stone woman in the same evening."
Harkin started humming again.
This time the bell below answered.
Every light in the room blinked once. The frost thickened over the glass, spreading fast from the corners. The monitor beside Harkin spat static, then a green line jumped across the screen in a pattern that had nothing to do with a heart.
Three pulses. Pause. Two pulses.
Nora pulled against my hold. "That's the ring from the apartment."
"Cormac," I said.
"I see it," he answered. "The dead ringer is broadcasting through the Harp lower medical power line. Something at Saint Brigid just answered."
Harkin jerked against the restraints. His back bowed. The tape at his arm reddened as blood crept under it.
"They're waking the mothers," he gasped.
"Who?" Nora demanded.
His eyes rolled toward her. "Gray nurse. Pretty face. Wrong hands. She took Rina to the chapel lift. Rina went walking, little bird. She went walking because the woman had Marian's band."
Nora flinched hard.
My hand spread over her waist. "Keep talking, Daniel."
"Rina knew. Rina knew if she stayed, Vale would peel her open for the bridge. She left the girl the question. She left the bird a path."
"Where is the chapel lift?" I asked.
Harkin's head thrashed once on the pillow. "Behind the old altar. Down where the drawers sleep. Bell opens sick door. Mother opens cold door. Bird opens blood door."
"What blood door?"
His mouth worked. Foam touched his lower lip. The cold had turned his skin bluish around the nails.
Nora twisted free of me before I expected it. She moved to the bed, fast, fierce, and stupidly brave. I caught her wrist before she got within reach of his hands.
"He needs Siobhan," she said.
"He needs distance from you."
"He's dying."
"He can die without taking you with him."
That hit her. I saw it, and I hated myself for the hurt in her eyes. Then Harkin whispered her name, and she tore her gaze from me.
"Nora Brooks."
The room went so still I heard water moving in an old pipe behind the wall.
Harkin had not known her full name when we entered. I would have sworn it. Finn looked sick. Aidan raised his weapon toward the ceiling camera.
"Say that again," I said.
Harkin smiled through bloody teeth. "Nora Brooks. Nora Marian. Nora bridge. Thomas hid you in plain sight. Pretty little borrowed daughter. Pretty little key."
Rage hit so fast my vision narrowed.
I reached him before anyone could stop me. My hand locked around his throat, not crushing, only holding him still. His pulse hammered under my thumb like a trapped animal.
"You speak to her like that again," I said, "and I will forget you are useful."
Harkin sobbed. "She has to go. She has to ask the mothers. Men hear bells. Girls hear doors."
Nora touched my arm.
One touch. Light. Barely there.
It stopped me.
My hand opened. Harkin sucked in air. I turned to Nora, and the way she looked at me nearly broke something I had built too long ago to name. She was afraid, hurt, and furious, but she had touched me like she knew I would come back from the edge for her.
God help me, I did.
"Declan," Gabriel's voice came through comms.
The boss sounded calm. That meant men were already moving, guns were being loaded, and someone would bleed before morning.
"Here," I said.
"Bring Nora out. Now. Cormac has Saint Brigid mapped as well as he can from corrupted records. Maeve confirms Mercy Women's Foundation leased the chapel wing through a donor trust tied to Vale. Siobhan says Harkin's temperature drop may be induced through the IV line, not the room."
My gaze snapped to the bag hanging beside the bed.
Clear fluid ran through the tube. At the bottom of the bag, a faint silver thread caught the light, twisting like smoke in water.
"Aidan," I said.
He was already moving. He clamped the line, then yanked the stand away from Harkin with one hand. Finn hit the emergency lock on the door panel. Lenox dragged the second guard back.
Harkin laughed, weak and broken. "Too late. Nurse kissed the line before she left. Cold gets in. Cold remembers."
Nora stared at the IV bag. "Gray nurse was in here too."
"Credential log shows no entry," Cormac said.
"Then the credential log is worth less than the paper I want to burn it on," I said.
Gabriel's voice sharpened. "Declan."
"We have a route. Saint Brigid chapel wing. Old maternity cold room. Rina went with the gray nurse because the nurse had Marian Brooks's band. Nora is tied to a second access path. Harkin says men hear bells, girls hear doors."
A pause. Short. Heavy.
"Nora does not go inside that building," Gabriel said.
Nora lifted her chin.
I could feel the argument coming before she opened her mouth.
Worse, I could feel my own answer shifting under it.
The man I had been an hour ago would have hauled her out and locked the car doors.
The man standing in Harkin's freezing room with her touch still burning on his arm knew Vale had built the trap around people no locked door could erase.
"Boss," I said, and the word scraped going out. "Harkin is saying the next door may only answer her."
Nora's breath caught.
Gabriel went quiet.
Men like us did not get rewarded for telling the truth when it made protection harder. We got punished by having to stand inside the truth after the words left.
"Your job," Gabriel said at last, "is to keep her breathing."
"I know my job."
"Say it."
My eyes stayed on Nora. "I keep Nora breathing."
Her face changed. The fight did not leave it. Something else entered with it, something that made the cold room feel smaller around us.
"And if the door needs her?" Gabriel asked.
My throat tightened. "Then I stand close enough that anything reaching through hits me first."
Aidan looked away. Finn stared at the floor. Nora did neither. She held my eyes with tears standing bright and unshed.
Harkin's monitor screamed.
His body seized once, hard enough to rattle the restraints. The frost on the glass cracked from top to bottom. The bell under the floor gave a final deep strike, and every screen in the room flashed white.
Then a woman's voice came through the speaker.
Soft. Young. Calm.
"Nora Brooks confirmed. Marian drawer awake. Bring the bird home."
The speaker died.
For two seconds, nobody moved.
Then Gabriel said one word in my ear.
"Move."
I grabbed Nora's hand and pulled her out of the room as Harkin's monitor flatlined behind us.
The basement hallway erupted into orders, boots, and the metallic snap of weapons coming ready.
Aidan slammed the medical door shut. Finn shouted for a bag team and backup power.
Lenox dragged the guards into a wider formation.
Above us, The Black Harp's old pipes groaned like the building had taken a breath.
Nora stumbled once. I caught her against me, one arm around her back, her face close to my throat. She smelled like rain, plaster dust, and fear she refused to bow to. My body answered with a need so violent it had nowhere decent to go.
"Did you hear her?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"She knew my name."
"Yes."
Her fingers dug into my coat. "Declan, what if my mother isn't only a drawer?"
The question went through me clean.
I looked down the corridor toward the stairwell, toward the cars, toward Saint Brigid waiting somewhere under old chapel stone with Rina, a gray nurse, and a system that had learned to speak Nora's name.
"Then we find out with guns in front of you," I said.
Nora looked up at me. Pale. Shaking. Alive.
The next bell rang from inside my evidence sleeve.