Chapter 4 - THE VOICE ON THE PHONEThe call ended before Leo could trace it.
Norah stood perfectly still, one hand pressed over her mouth.
“That was Rosa,” she said.
Gabriel stared at the phone. “You’re certain?”
“I heard her every day for fifteen years.”
“She died six years ago.”
“I know when she died.”
Leo placed the phone on the table. “It could be an imitation.”
“She called me by my childhood nickname,” Norah said. “Nobody else knew it.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened. “What nickname?”
“Nori.”
He looked toward the security monitors. “Find the call.”
While Leo’s team worked, Gabriel locked the bunker doors and inspected every food container himself. Norah watched him read labels, check seals, and smell bottled water before allowing anyone to touch it.
“You cannot keep living like this,” she said.
“I’m alive.”
“You’re starving.”
“I ate your stew.”
“One bowl.”
“It was a significant bowl.”
She almost smiled. Then she remembered the voice.
Norah opened the photograph again. Under magnification, the silver bracelet on the baby’s wrist revealed a tiny engraving: G.H.
“That baby is you,” she said.
Gabriel nodded. “My mother carried me everywhere until the year she died.”
“Rosa said the child in the picture wasn’t the one they thought he was.”
“Maybe she meant my father believed I was his heir.”
“That doesn’t explain the message about finding my mother’s child.”
Gabriel turned sharply. “Your mother?”
Norah told him what she knew. Her mother, Clara Bennett, had worked double shifts, disappeared when Norah was sixteen, and had been found dead in a motel outside Dayton. The police called it an accidental overdose. Rosa had never accepted that explanation.
“She said my mother had been afraid of someone,” Norah finished. “But she never told me who.”
Gabriel’s jaw hardened. “Marcus.”
“You think Marcus killed my mother?”
“I think Marcus has been cleaning up secrets for thirty years.”
The bunker lights flickered.
Every monitor went black.
Leo drew his weapon. “Power failure.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “The backup system is separate.”
Something scraped along the ventilation grate.
Norah looked up.
A thin metal canister rolled from the vent and struck the concrete floor.
Leo shouted, “Gas!”
Gabriel grabbed Norah and pulled her toward the emergency exit. A white cloud hissed from the canister. Men coughed in the corridor. Someone fired blindly.
The emergency door opened onto the parking structure. Rain blew through the concrete levels, cold and sharp.
Gabriel pushed Norah behind a pillar. “Breathe through your sleeve.”
“What is it?”
“Probably not lethal.”
“Probably?”
“I’m trying to be comforting.”
They ran down the ramp as gunfire erupted behind them. Gabriel stumbled near the second level. Norah caught his arm.
“You’re bleeding.”
A bullet had grazed his side.
“Keep moving.”
They reached an SUV, but the driver was slumped over the wheel. Gabriel opened the passenger door and pushed Norah inside. He took the driver’s seat.
“You can drive?” she asked.
“I can do many things.”
The engine roared. He crashed through the garage gate and shot into the street.
For five minutes, neither spoke.
Then Norah’s phone vibrated.
She pulled it from her pocket.
There was a text message from an unknown number.
Rosa is alive. She is waiting where the river remembers.
Below the message was an address.
Norah recognized it immediately.
The old riverside cannery where her mother had worked before she vanished.
Gabriel read the screen.
“We’re not going there,” he said.
“Yes, we are.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Then we’ll know who set it.”
He glanced at her. “You’re remarkably calm.”
“I’m not calm. I’m furious.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
May you like
“Good,” Gabriel said. “Fury keeps people alive.”
Behind them, three black cars turned onto the same street.
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