Chapter 7 - THE ROOM UNDER BELLWEATHER
Z
Martin Ellison had known.
That sentence followed Nora all the way back to Bellweather.
Known.
He had hired her seven years earlier.
Promoted her.
Trusted her with landmark restorations.
Sat beside her at her mother's funeral.
Sent flowers when Nora's father died.
And somewhere inside those years, he had allowed Richard Pierce to place Lincoln into her life.
Adrian drove.
Nora sat beside him.
Marcus and four trusted security officers followed.
Jessica remained under protection at a secure medical facility.
It was nearly midnight.
Exactly when Lincoln had originally ordered Nora to come.
“You can stay in the vehicle,” Adrian said.
Nora looked out the window.
“No.”
“I knew you'd say that.”
“Then why ask?”
“I enjoy disappointment.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
Adrian's hand moved across the center console.
His fingers closed around hers.
No speech.
No promise.
Just pressure.
Nora held on.
Bellweather stood dark against the waterfront.
One light burned inside the ruined lobby.
Lincoln waited there.
So did Richard Pierce.
Nora knew him immediately.
Older than the photograph.
Silver hair.
Expensive coat.
Same polite smile she remembered from Christmas dinners.
“Nora,” Richard said warmly.
As if they were family.
She wanted to hit him.
Lincoln stood beside him.
Daniel Rourke held a gun behind Martin Ellison.
Martin's face was bruised.
He couldn't meet Nora's eyes.
Adrian entered beside her.
Marcus remained somewhere outside according to plan.
Richard smiled.
“Adrian Cross.”
“Richard.”
“Your father would be disappointed.”
“My father usually was.”
Richard laughed.
Nora looked at Lincoln.
Five years disappeared.
He looked exactly the same.
That felt offensive.
“You look tired,” he told her.
She stared.
“You look single.”
His jaw tightened.
Good.
Richard sighed.
“Children.”
“We're almost thirty,” Nora said.
“And yet.”
Adrian's hand rested lightly against Nora's lower back.
Lincoln noticed.
His face changed.
That was worth every terrible hour.
Richard held out his hand.
“The box.”
Adrian carried an identical steel archive box.
Not the real one.
A decoy.
“You release Ellison first.”
Richard smiled.
“No.”
Martin finally looked at Nora.
“I'm sorry.”
She felt nothing.
Maybe later.
“What did you do?”
His eyes filled.
“Your firm was failing.”
Nora laughed once.
“So you sold me?”
“No.”
“You put Lincoln in my life.”
“I introduced him to an event you attended. That's all.”
“For money?”
Martin looked away.
Richard answered.
“For a great deal of money.”
Nora's voice shook.
“You knew why?”
“At first, no.”
“And later?”
Martin's silence answered.
Nora nodded.
“Goodbye, Martin.”
He flinched harder than if she had struck him.
Richard clapped once.
“Now. The room.”
Nora looked toward the north corridor.
“You still haven't found it.”
Lincoln's mouth hardened.
“That's why you're here.”
“Five years and you never learned enough from me?”
“I learned plenty.”
“Apparently not.”
He stepped toward her.
Adrian moved once.
Barely.
But Lincoln stopped.
Richard said, “Take us downstairs.”
Nora led them.
Not because she intended to cooperate.
Because she had spent two hours studying Bellweather's original plans.
And because old buildings, unlike people, usually told the truth if you knew where to look.
They reached the service tunnel.
Nora stopped at the sealed wall where the archive box had been found.
Richard frowned.
“That's not it.”
“I know.”
She turned toward the opposite wall.
An iron bracket protruded near the floor.
Nora pulled it.
Nothing happened.
Lincoln laughed.
Then she kicked the baseboard beneath it.
A mechanism groaned.
The wall shifted.
Cold air rushed from darkness.
Behind it descended a narrow staircase.
Richard's eyes lit.
“Finally.”
They went down.
The room beneath Bellweather was larger than Nora expected.
Original brick arches.
Steel columns.
An old freight elevator cage.
And against the far wall—
A bank of filing cabinets.
Boxes.
Hard drives.
Records.
Decades of secrets.
Richard breathed out.
“My insurance.”
Adrian stared.
“Against whom?”
“Everyone.”
Richard smiled.
“Your father. Politicians. Unions. Federal agents. Competitors.”
“Your own son?”
Richard's expression barely changed.
“If necessary.”
Lincoln looked at him.
Something flickered.
Good, Nora thought.
Let the liar discover he had been lied to.
Richard opened one cabinet.
Empty.
His smile vanished.
“What?”
He pulled another open.
Empty.
Then another.
All empty.
Nora looked toward Adrian.
He didn't react.
Richard spun toward her.
“Where are the records?”
Nora said, “You spent twenty years searching for this room.”
“Yes.”
“You really thought nobody else found it?”
Richard raised his gun.
Adrian stepped in front of Nora.
Lincoln said, “Dad.”
“Shut up.”
Richard's control cracked.
“Where are they?”
A voice answered from behind them.
“Federal custody.”
Marcus.
He stood on the stairs with agents behind him.
Daniel spun.
Gunfire exploded.
Nora dropped.
Adrian pulled her behind a steel column.
Lincoln shouted.
Daniel fired toward the stairs.
Agents returned fire.
Richard ran for the freight elevator.
Lincoln followed.
Nora saw something Adrian didn't.
The elevator cables.
Original steel.
Corroded.
“Don't!”
Lincoln entered the cage.
Richard slammed the lever.
The mechanism groaned.
Nothing.
Then the platform moved.
Up.
Nora looked at the support.
A fresh cut.
Someone had prepared another collapse.
“Adrian!”
He turned.
“The cable!”
Daniel fired.
Adrian pushed Nora down.
The bullet struck the brick behind them.
Marcus shot Daniel in the shoulder.
Daniel fell.
Above them, metal screamed.
Lincoln looked upward.
The cable snapped.
The elevator cage dropped six feet and jammed violently.
Richard crashed against the bars.
Lincoln screamed.
The platform hung crooked over a deeper shaft.
Nora crawled forward.
Adrian grabbed her.
“No.”
“Lincoln will fall.”
“He tried to kill you.”
“I know.”
“Nora.”
She looked at him.
“If I let him die when I can stop it, he gets to decide who I become.”
Adrian stared at her.
Then released her.
They moved together.
Lincoln clung to the cage.
“Help me!”
Richard was unconscious.
The floor shifted.
Nora saw the emergency brake assembly.
“Adrian, hold that lever!”
He grabbed it.
Nora reached through the bars.
Lincoln caught her wrist.
For one strange moment, they looked at each other.
Five years.
“I did love you,” he whispered.
Nora stared.
Maybe it was true.
Maybe it wasn't.
It no longer mattered.
“You should have loved me honestly.”
Agents secured the cage.
Lincoln was pulled free.
Richard followed unconscious.
Handcuffs replaced Nora's grip.
When they led Lincoln away, he looked back.
Nora didn't.
Martin was rescued upstairs.
Daniel survived.
Richard survived.
That seemed fitting.
Dead men escaped consequences too easily.
Outside, dawn had begun coloring the edge of Seattle gray.
Nora stood beneath Bellweather's broken stone arch.
Adrian approached.
“You saved him.”
“Yes.”
“I wouldn't have.”
“I know.”
“Does that bother you?”
Nora considered it.
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You didn't stop me.”
Adrian looked toward the police vehicles.
“No.”
“Why?”
His gaze returned to her.
“Because if I wanted someone who thought exactly as I do, Nora, I would spend my life talking to mirrors.”
For the first time since Lincoln's bedroom door opened, Nora felt something inside her settle.
Not heal.
Not yet.
But settle.
Then Adrian's phone buzzed.
He checked it.
His expression changed.
Nora sighed.
“What now?”
He looked at her.
“Richard Pierce made one phone call before entering Bellweather tonight.”
“To whom?”
Adrian turned the screen toward her.
The number was familiar.
Nora stared.
It was Lincoln's old number.
The one ending in 7819.
Except the call had not gone to Lincoln.
The account was registered to someone else entirely.
May you like
Someone Nora had believed dead for fourteen years.
Her father.
