Chapter 9 - St. AgnesSt. Agnes Orphanage had been closed for twenty-three years.
It stood at the edge of the city behind iron gates twisted with vines, its brick walls blackened by age and weather. Half the windows were boarded. The chapel steeple leaned slightly to one side, silhouetted against a moonless sky.
I arrived at 11:57 p.m. carrying a canvas catering bag.
Inside were fake copies of Eleanor’s notebook and letter.
Inside my jacket was a tracker.
Inside my left earring was a microphone.
Inside my chest was a heart trying to break through my ribs.
Detective Bennett’s team waited three blocks away. Richard’s private security waited farther back, because Bennett had threatened to arrest Marcus if he interfered.
Richard had wanted to come.
Bennett refused.
Oliver had begged him not to leave.
That settled it.
So I walked through the iron gates alone.
The chapel doors were open.
A single candle burned near the altar.
“Very cinematic,” I muttered, because fear makes people say stupid things.
My earpiece crackled once.
Bennett’s voice whispered, “We hear you.”
I stepped inside.
The chapel smelled of mildew, wax, and old wood. Moonlight leaked through broken stained glass, painting the floor in fractured colors.
A man sat in the front pew.
Victor Hale.
He did not turn around.
“You’re late.”
“It’s midnight.”
“You’re nervous. Nervous people count time generously.”
I stopped ten feet behind him.
“Where’s Lily?”
“Close.”
“I want to see her.”
“And I want to be thirty again. We all suffer disappointment.”
I tightened my grip on the bag.
Victor stood and faced me.
He had changed clothes since the boathouse. Dark suit. No overcoat. No sign he had run through rain or fire. Men like him always found time to look untouched.
“Put the bag on the aisle.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“No?”
“I see Lily first.”
He smiled. “You’ve been spending too much time around Richard. That sounded almost entitled.”
“It sounded like a condition.”
Victor sighed.
Then he nodded toward the confessional booth.
The door opened.
Lily stepped out.
She was smaller than I remembered from the boat. Thin, dark-haired, wearing an oversized gray sweatshirt and sneakers without socks. Her wrists were free now, but a man stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder.
She clutched the blue blanket.
Her eyes met mine.
Not scared like Oliver.
Harder.
Quieter.
A child who had learned not to waste fear where adults could see it.
“Hi, Lily,” I said softly.
She said nothing.
Victor gestured. “Proof of life. Now the bag.”
I placed it on the floor and slid it forward.
He didn’t pick it up.
The man behind Lily moved first.
Tall, shaved head, tattoo on his neck.
He checked the bag, then nodded.
Victor smiled.
“Thank you, Ava.”
“Let her go.”
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
“That was the deal.”
“The deal was that you bring the notebook and letter. You brought copies.”
I froze.
Victor’s smile sharpened.
“Did Detective Bennett think I wouldn’t notice? Eleanor wrote with a fountain pen. The pressure marks bled through three pages. Your forgery is excellent for a police rush job, but grief made you sloppy.”
My earpiece crackled.
Bennett whispered, “Hold him. We’re moving.”
Victor’s gaze flicked to my ear.
“Also, your microphone is humming.”
He crossed the aisle and ripped the earring from my ear.
Pain shot through my lobe.
Lily flinched.
Victor crushed the device under his shoe.
“Now we can speak honestly.”
I tried to keep my breathing steady.
“The police are already coming.”
“Yes.”
He looked almost pleased.
“That’s why we won’t be here.”
The tattooed man shoved Lily toward the side door.
I moved instinctively.
Victor grabbed my arm.
“Careful.”
Lily looked back at me.
For a split second, her eyes moved down.
To the floor.
Then to the altar.
Then back to me.
A signal?
I looked where she had looked.
The chapel floor was old wood.
Near the altar, one board was raised slightly.
A door.
Another hidden door.
Lily knew.
Of course she knew.
She had grown up in places designed to hide her.
Victor pulled me closer.
“You remind me of Eleanor,” he said softly. “She also thought courage was enough.”
“What happened to her?”
He studied me.
Then, perhaps because he believed I would not leave alive, he answered.
“Eleanor discovered Margaret’s adoption network. She planned to expose it. Margaret begged me to stop her. Isabella offered to help. We needed Eleanor discredited, not dead.”
“But she died.”
Victor’s eyes cooled.
“Isabella was ambitious.”
“She killed her?”
“She accelerated an inevitable crisis.”
I stared at him.
“You people use language like bleach.”
For the first time, anger flashed across his face.
“You think this is simple? Eleanor would have destroyed hundreds of families. Children placed in loving homes would have been dragged into court. Mothers who rebuilt their lives would have been exposed. Companies would have collapsed. Hospitals would have lost funding.”
“Because rich people broke the law.”
“Because life is not clean.”
“No,” I said. “Because you made money from dirty things.”
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Victor’s expression hardened.
He dragged me toward the side door.
But Lily suddenly screamed.
Not a frightened scream.
A weapon.
The tattooed man clapped a hand over her mouth.
In that second, I kicked Victor’s knee as hard as I could.
He cursed and loosened his grip.
I lunged toward the raised floorboard.
The tattooed man shoved Lily aside and came for me.
I grabbed the edge of the board and pulled.
It opened.
A narrow stairwell descended beneath the altar.
Lily shouted, “Run down!”
So I did the only insane thing left.
I grabbed her hand and jumped.
We hit the stairs hard.
Pain shot through my ankle.
Above us, Victor shouted.
Gunfire cracked through the chapel doors.
Police.
The tattooed man yelled.
Lily pulled me down the stairs with shocking strength.
At the bottom was a tunnel lined with old stone.
“Where does this go?” I gasped.
“Laundry house,” she said.
“How do you know?”
She looked back at me.
“Because I was born here.”
May you like
Then she tugged me deeper into the dark.
Behind us, Victor’s footsteps pounded down the stairs.
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