Chapter 36 #2
Something hit me. I looked around.
“Where is Rand?” I asked.
A small silence, then, “He stepped out a few minutes ago to take a call,” Libby said. “He hasn’t come back. Why?”
Something cold moved through my chest. “How much does he know about the MR-7 transfer financials?” I asked Myra.
“Everything I found,” she said. “We were working together.” Her face had gone very still. “He knew the four unidentified entities. He was the one who suggested we look at the contractor records.”
“He directed the search,” Atlas said flatly.
“Yes,” Myra said.
The pieces arranged themselves. I watched them stack themselves in Myra’s expression, too. It was the same sequence, two seconds behind me, ending at the same place.
“He didn’t step out to take a call,” River said quietly.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t. Fuck.”
Libby’s voice was barely audible. “He was feeding the search. Steering what we found and what we didn’t.” She pressed a hand flat to the desk. “He’s been inside our circle this whole fucking time.”
Autumn froze mid-note, then crossed out a name in her notebook with enough force to tear the page.
Nivea covered her mouth.
River’s expression didn’t show fear, just betrayal, the deep, cutting kind that came from trust being used as a weapon.
“And he knows we’re all here,” Atlas said. “He knows who Evan is. He knows what he told us.”
The ceiling groaned as the first impact rattled the ceiling tiles. The second bowed the steel bar Atlas had installed over Cade’s back door. The third was a crack—a sound no one wanted to hear above them.
Something heavy hit the roof hard enough to rain plaster dust.
“Move!” I barked. “Take cover. Now!”
Atlas yanked Evan into Cade’s office. Cade racked the shotgun, the sound sharp and ugly in the dark.
River shifted behind my good side, not hiding, positioning.
Myra pulled Nivea behind a stack of beer cases.
Libby pressed her back to the wall. Autumn was under a table with her laptop out, wearing the expression of someone who intended to document everything.
Another impact. The power flickered and then died.
Darkness swallowed the room, broken only by the amber glow of the emergency bulb Cade had wired during the last blizzard.
Atlas’s voice was a blade. “Roof entry. Not the door.”
A metallic groan sounded, then the nightmare sound of screws tearing free.
They were prying open the ventilation hatch.
A panel ripped free above us and skidded across the ceiling. River’s breath hitched, and I reached back, found her hand, and squeezed once. It wasn’t comfort, it was a promise.
“We’re leaving,” I decided. “Through the bar. Cade, kill the sound system, leave the lights.”
He sprinted out.
Above us, something scraped, the sound low and deliberate.
Atlas raised his gun. “We’re out of time.”
“Go!”
The group surged into motion. Myra dragged Nivea. Andra pulled Libby. Autumn stuck close with her laptop hugged to her chest. Atlas kept one arm clamped around Evan’s shoulders.
River stayed at my side, her steps in perfect sync with mine.
We hadn’t made it ten steps before the emergency lights flickered and the room dropped into pitch darkness.
A half-second later, red pulsed through the windows.
Not dozens of red eyes. Scores of them.
Masks lined the street, illuminated by the storm’s light, rows of glowing lenses in white masks staring into the bar.
“They’re not really attacking the bar,” Andra said. “This is a performance. They just want us to see them.”
River stiffened.
I stepped closer. “Eyes down,” I whispered. “Don’t even give them your attention.”
A distorted, mechanical voice came from the hallway. Too close for comfort.
“River Bennett.”
We all went still.
“You were warned,” the voice continued, echoing like a verdict.
Atlas yelled, “Move. Now.”
We barreled through the bar to the narrow exit by the gaming machines. Atlas yanked it open, and cold rain knifed in.
“Go!”
Evan was out first, Atlas driving him forward. Myra and Nivea followed. Then Andra and Libby. Autumn. Cade held the line inside.
River went through with me behind her.
Our feet hit slick pavement just as a masked figure stepped from the shadows at the end of the alley.
Red eyes. Black hood. Something in their right hand.
River inhaled sharply.
I drew my Glock in one clean motion and stepped between her and the figure.
“Sheriff’s department! Hands where I can see them!”
The figure went still. Then, slowly, with the particular deliberateness of someone who wanted to be understood, they raised both hands. When I looked closer, I saw there actually wasn’t anything in the hand. They were both empty.
And then they reached up, gripped the mask, and pulled it off.
Rain hammered the asphalt, and River made a sound I’d never heard from her before.
Cade said, low and certain, “That’s Mark Vale.”
The man in front of us didn’t run. Didn’t even flinch. He just stood there in the rain with the mask hanging from his hand, looking at me with the expression of someone who knew it was over.
“Jordyn’s brother,” River whispered.
“He’s the one who killed Eleanor,” Evan said from somewhere behind me, his voice barely audible. “He wanted you to see him. He wants you to know.”
Thunder cracked overhead.
Mark Vale didn’t move.
In the next flash of lightning, I saw that he still wasn’t reaching for a weapon, and he wasn’t fighting. He was just holding out his hands, palms forward, wrists up. It was the gesture of a man who had decided to surrender.
“Atlas,” I said.
“Already moving,” Atlas said. The cuffs clicked in the rain.
For the first time since Eleanor Jenkins had disappeared, we had people who were there that night in police custody.
River’s hand found my arm in the dark.
I didn’t look away from Mark Vale.
“We’re going to need a very secure room,” I said.
Cade walked up. “I’ve got a place.”