Chapter 12 - BENEATH THE STONE ROOM
Maya covered Daniel’s mouth with part of her sleeve.
Celeste pounded against the metal door.
“Grant!”
The gas grew thicker.
Daniel pointed toward the floor.
Rebecca’s archive contained a map of the hidden room.
A drainage channel beneath the wine shelves led to the storm tunnel.
Maya tore away the lowest shelf.
A rusted grate appeared.
Celeste helped lift it.
Maya looked at her.
“You locked Lily in this room.”
Celeste’s face twisted.
“I did not intend for her to die.”
“You hid her inhaler.”
“Grant said Alexander would arrive sooner.”
“You heard her struggling to breathe.”
Celeste looked away.
Maya wanted to leave her.
Then she remembered Rebecca’s message.
Power meant stopping people, not becoming them.
“Help Daniel through.”
They crawled beneath the floor.
The drainage passage opened into a large storm tunnel.
Water rushed around their ankles.
Daniel could barely walk.
Maya placed his arm across her shoulders.
Celeste followed.
Behind them, the stone room filled with gas.
Ahead, a flashlight appeared.
Grant stood on a narrow bridge above the water.
Senator Monroe was beside him.
The senator carried two suitcases.
Grant held the gun.
“You were supposed to die quietly,” he told Maya.
Alexander’s voice echoed from the tunnel entrance.
“She has never done anything quietly.”
He stood beside Agent Ellis and several federal officers.
Grant pulled Daniel against him.
Senator Monroe raised his hands.
“This man kidnapped me.”
Celeste laughed bitterly.
“You planned all of it.”
Her father stared at her.
“Be careful.”
“You were leaving without me.”
The senator said nothing.
Celeste finally understood that she had never been a daughter to him.
She had been an instrument.
Grant backed toward the bridge controls.
Explosive charges lined the tunnel wall.
“If I cannot leave, the river buries everyone.”
Alexander stepped forward.
“Let Daniel go.”
“Give me the tablet.”
“The evidence is already outside your reach.”
Grant aimed at Maya.
“Then I take the one witness who refuses to disappear.”
Daniel drove his heel into Grant’s knee.
The gun fired.
Celeste screamed.
The bullet struck her father’s suitcase.
Cash exploded into the water.
Senator Monroe threw himself after it.
Grant reached for the detonator.
Maya struck his hand with Lily’s brass key.
The device fell into the rushing water.
Grant grabbed her by the throat.
Alexander crossed the bridge.
The two men fought beside the edge.
Grant pulled a knife.
He drove it toward Alexander’s chest.
Maya shouted.
Daniel seized Grant’s ankle.
Alexander knocked the knife away.
Grant slipped over the railing.
He caught the metal edge with one hand.
Alexander reached down.
Grant stared at him.
“You would save me?”
“You will answer for what you did.”
Grant accepted his hand.
Then he pulled Alexander forward, trying to drag them both into the water.
Maya struck Grant’s wrist with a metal pipe.
His grip broke.
May you like
Grant fell into the dark current.
His body disappeared beneath the tunnel.
