Chapter 6 - THE MAN WHO KEPT THE FIRE BURNING
Charles Rourke did not look like a man who had spent ten years hiding murders. He looked like someone who belonged on television after a national crisis—silver at the temples, expensive overcoat, calm voice, the practiced posture of a man accustomed to being believed. That was probably why Victor Vale had trusted him with the dirtiest work.
Adrian moved in front of me without thinking. “You worked for my father.” Rourke smiled. “Your father understood how cities really function. He paid people to keep doors open and others to make inconvenient facts disappear. You inherited his chair, Adrian, but never his stomach.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Rourke’s men spread across the pier. Their weapons were visible now, and there were too many of them for a clean fight. Marcus and Adrian’s security team held positions behind shipping containers, but one wrong move could put my mother directly in the crossfire. I felt her fingers close around mine.
“Evie,” she whispered, “the key isn’t for the basement.” I turned toward her. “What?” “The silver key.” Her eyes stayed fixed on Rourke. “Your father made two locks. The basement was the test. The real one is inside Lucia’s clock.”
Rourke’s expression changed. That tiny reaction told me my mother’s memory was right. I raised my voice. “So you don’t need the key to destroy the archive. You need me to tell you where the archive is.”
Rourke’s smile disappeared. “Give it to me, and your mother walks away.” “Why would I believe a man who burned my home?” “You survived, didn’t you?” The answer was so cold that even Travis looked sick.
Adrian said, “You’ve been using Vale security contracts to fund your people.” Rourke glanced at him. “Your cousin made that easy. Travis wanted information about his father. He paid companies he didn’t understand. I let him follow crumbs.”
Travis stared at Rourke. “You used me.” “Your entire family has been useful.” Something in Travis broke. He stepped from cover and raised his gun. “Travis, don’t!” Adrian shouted. Rourke’s men fired first.
Adrian slammed Travis sideways as bullets sparked off the SUV. Marcus returned fire from behind a steel barrier. I pulled my mother down and crawled with her toward Vincent, who had managed to loosen the rope around one wrist. The pier became a storm of muzzle flashes, shouting, shattered glass, and the brutal echo of gunfire against metal walls.
A round tore through the SUV door above my shoulder. My mother flinched, but she did not scream. Instead, she looked strangely calm, as if fear belonged to a different decade and she had already spent all of hers.
“Evie,” she said, gripping my face between both hands. “Lucia’s clock is in the old house chapel.” “The house burned.” “Not the foundation.” Another burst of gunfire cut across the pier.
Vincent crawled closer. “There’s a tunnel from the chapel ruins to the river. Matteo rebuilt part of it after the fire. Rourke knows the archive exists, but not the entrance.”
I looked toward the black water. A small service boat was tied beneath the pier, half hidden by pilings. Adrian saw it at the same moment. “Marcus!” he shouted. “Cover the south edge!”
He ran toward us, crouched low, and pulled my mother to her feet. Travis followed, blood darkening the sleeve of his tuxedo where a bullet had grazed him. Whatever game he had started at the gala was gone now. He looked younger, frightened, and furious.
We moved toward the boat while Marcus’s team laid down covering fire. Rourke shouted for his men to cut us off. A figure appeared at the bottom of the ramp. Travis tackled him before he could raise his weapon, and both men crashed against the railing. Adrian dragged Travis free and shoved him toward the boat.
“Move!” Vincent climbed in first. I helped my mother after him. Adrian untied the rope while Travis started the motor. For one absurd second, I remembered him at the Winter Benefit laughing about my shoes. Now he was bleeding onto a stolen service boat while armed men chased us down the East River.
The engine roared. Bullets struck the water behind us as we pulled away. Rourke stood at the end of the pier, coat whipping in the wind. He did not fire. He simply watched us leave, which frightened me more. Men like him did not chase blindly. They waited for people to run toward the place they cared about most.
Adrian seemed to reach the same conclusion. “He wanted us to escape.” Travis looked over. “That’s insane.” “No,” I said. “He heard my mother say the archive is under the old estate.”
Vincent cursed under his breath. My phone vibrated. No caller ID. I almost ignored it, then remembered the prepaid phone in B17. I answered. My father’s voice came through immediately. “Do not go to Tarrytown.”
“Dad, where are you?” “Listen to me. Rourke has watchers on every road to the estate. He has spent ten years waiting for one of us to lead him to the original archive.”
I looked at Adrian. He was close enough to hear. “Then where do we go?” There was a pause. “To the one place Victor Vale never knew belonged to us.”
My father gave me an address in Brooklyn. Adrian frowned. “That’s an abandoned church.” “It was,” Matteo said. “Before Lucia bought the block through a convent trust in 1978.” I closed my eyes for one second. Even dead secrets had paperwork.
My father continued. “There is a safe beneath the altar. Inside is a ledger with Rourke’s federal payment codes and Victor’s original order for the fire. Get it before sunrise. Once Rourke realizes what you’re doing, he’ll burn every bridge he has left.”
“Are you there?” “No.” “Then where are you?” Silence stretched over the line. Finally, he said, “Trying to bring your brother home.” The world seemed to tilt beneath me. “Gabriel is alive?”
May you like
The call ended. I stared at the dark phone screen while the boat cut through the river. Ten years earlier, I had lost my father, my brother, my name, and my home in a single night.
Now, before dawn, I had learned that perhaps none of those things had been as dead as I believed. And somewhere behind us, Charles Rourke was already coming.
