Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN SARAH BURIED
Sarah laughed.
It was not amusement.
It was the sound a person made when reality became too absurd to process.
“My mother is dead.”
Eleanor Voss watched her calmly.
“Margaret Vance died in a house fire in 2006.”
“Yes.”
“I identified her necklace.”
“You identified an object.”
Sarah stepped toward her.
“I saw the body.”
“You saw a covered body from a hallway.”
“I was nine.”
“Yes.”
Sarah stopped.
The memory returned unwillingly.
Smoke.
Firefighters.
Her aunt pulling her away.
A sheet over a stretcher.
A necklace in a plastic evidence bag.
She had not actually seen her mother’s face.
Daniel watched Sarah absorb that.
Eleanor continued.
“Margaret discovered Breakwater had changed.”
“Everybody suddenly discovers that after helping create it?”
The bitterness in Sarah’s voice surprised even her.
Eleanor accepted it.
“Your mother believed extraordinary threats justified extraordinary preparation. She did not believe unelected people should decide who lived or died.”
“That seems like a distinction she should have considered earlier.”
“You sound like her.”
“Do not say that.”
Eleanor fell silent.
Daniel stepped between them verbally.
“Where is Margaret?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah stared.
“You just said she’s alive.”
“She was alive eighteen months ago.”
“How do you know?”
“She contacted me.”
“Why?”
“To warn me that Wade Sloane had taken full operational control of Breakwater’s violent wing.”
Daniel frowned.
“You said you ran Breakwater.”
“I ran what remained of the original network.”
Eleanor’s eyes hardened.
“Sloane runs what it became.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“So we have factions inside a murder organization.”
“A crude description.”
“Accurate enough.”
Sarah shook her head.
“You expect us to believe you came here to help?”
“No.”
Eleanor looked toward Caroline’s boxes.
“I came because Caroline left something that can destroy all of us.”
Daniel’s face turned cold.
“There it is.”
“Not what you think.”
“People keep saying that right before asking me to trust them.”
Eleanor sighed.
“Caroline found the Breakwater ledger.”
“The card?”
“No. The actual ledger.”
Daniel looked toward the boxes.
“Where?”
“I hoped you knew.”
“We don’t.”
“Then Rebecca doesn’t either.”
Sarah watched Eleanor carefully.
“You protected my mother?”
“As long as I could.”
“And me?”
“Yes.”
“Did you protect Aaron?”
Eleanor’s face changed.
Sarah knew the answer.
“No.”
Sarah slapped her.
The sound cracked across the basement.
Nobody moved.
Eleanor did not raise a hand to her face.
Sarah’s voice trembled.
“He was twenty-nine.”
“I know.”
“He wanted children.”
“I know.”
“He stopped on the same bridge every Friday to buy terrible coffee because the old man selling it reminded him of his grandfather.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“You don’t get to know that.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
“You don’t get to turn him into a file.”
Eleanor opened her eyes.
“I tried to stop Sloane.”
“You failed.”
“Yes.”
That answer stole some of Sarah’s anger because Eleanor did not defend herself.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Tell us where Sloane is.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then give us something useful.”
Eleanor looked at the rabbit.
“Caroline’s daughter.”
Daniel’s body tensed.
“What about her?”
“Caroline trusted Nora with information adults would overlook.”
“She was four.”
“Exactly.”
Sarah remembered Rebecca asking Nora about the key.
“Locker 314.”
Eleanor nodded.
“What else did Caroline tell her?”
Daniel thought.
Songs.
Stories.
Bedtime games.
Caroline had created little codes for Nora constantly.
Treasure hunts.
Secret words.
Nora called the pantry “the pirate cave.”
She called Daniel’s office “the room where Daddy loses pens.”
Daniel suddenly froze.
“The lighthouse sleeps.”
Sarah looked at him.
“What?”
“The password.”
He picked up Caroline’s letter.
“Always come home before the lighthouse sleeps.”
“Maybe more than a password.”
Daniel called Baycrest.
Nora answered through a secure video connection.
“Daddy?”
“Hi, bug.”
Sarah flinched slightly at the nickname after the tick incident.
Daniel noticed.
“So did Nora.”
“Not bug anymore.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Nora saw Eleanor in the background.
“Who’s that?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Someone who knew Mommy.”
Eleanor’s face softened.
Nora studied her.
Then frowned.
“I know her.”
Everyone froze.
Daniel leaned closer to the screen.
“You’ve met Dr. Voss?”
“At Grandma Ellie’s house.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
Daniel turned slowly.
“Nora calls you Grandma Ellie?”
Eleanor whispered, “Caroline brought her once.”
“When?”
“Six months before the accident.”
Daniel stared.
“You met my daughter secretly?”
“Caroline needed somewhere safe.”
“For what?”
Nora interrupted.
“She showed me the lighthouse box.”
Silence.
Daniel turned back.
“What lighthouse box?”
Nora rolled her eyes in the way only children could when adults missed obvious information.
“Mommy’s box.”
“Where?”
“In the lighthouse.”
Daniel’s pulse jumped.
“Thomas Point?”
“No.”
“What lighthouse?”
“The little one.”
Sarah looked at Caroline’s old rabbit.
“Was it a toy?”
Nora nodded.
“At Grandma Ellie’s.”
Everyone looked at Eleanor.
Her composure cracked.
“I don’t have it.”
Nora frowned.
“Yes, you do.”
Eleanor stepped closer to the screen.
“Where did your mother put it?”
“In the music room.”
Eleanor’s face went white.
Daniel saw it.
“What?”
Eleanor looked toward him.
“My house was broken into two nights ago.”
Sarah felt her stomach drop.
“What was taken?”
“Nothing, I thought.”
Daniel said, “Where is the lighthouse?”
“Music room bookshelf.”
Nora smiled proudly.
“Push the bird.”
Eleanor stared.
“What bird?”
“The silver bird.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“I never knew.”
They left for Eleanor’s estate under federal escort.
The mansion sat outside Annapolis behind iron gates and old trees.
Daniel had attended dinners there with Caroline.
He suddenly questioned every room.
Every conversation.
The music room was untouched.
Grand piano.
Bookshelves.
Family photographs.
A decorative wooden lighthouse stood on a shelf.
Sarah pressed a small silver bird carved into its base.
Click.
A hidden compartment opened.
Empty.
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Someone got here first.”
Eleanor stepped closer.
Inside the compartment, scratched into the wood, were four numbers.
Sarah said, “Date?”
Daniel shook his head.
“June nineteenth?”
Caroline died August third.
Eleanor stared at the numbers.
“No.”
“What?”
“That’s a security access code format.”
She crossed the room to an old wall safe.
0619 opened it.
Inside was another envelope.
NORA.
Daniel opened it.
A child’s drawing fell out.
Three stick figures.
Mommy.
Daddy.
Nora.
Behind them stood a lighthouse.
At the bottom Caroline had written:
WHEN THE LIGHT GOES OUT, FOLLOW THE STARS.
Nora had colored seven stars across the page.
Sarah examined them.
“They aren’t random.”
Daniel looked.
Each star had a number of points.
Five.
Seven.
Four.
Nine.
Six.
Eight.
Three.
Eleanor whispered, “Coordinates.”
Daniel immediately photographed the drawing for analysts.
Within minutes, they found a possible match.
Not latitude and longitude.
Warehouse grid references.
Harbor Point Station.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Caroline had hidden something at his own command.
Sarah’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
Her body tightened.
A text appeared.
DO NOT GO TO HARBOR POINT.
Then another.
SLOANE IS WAITING.
Daniel saw it.
“Who sent that?”
“I don’t know.”
A third message arrived.
SARAH, I’M SORRY I LEFT YOU.
Sarah stopped breathing.
No one else understood.
She did.
Her knees almost failed.
Daniel caught her elbow.
“What?”
Sarah stared at the screen.
Only one person had ever said those exact words to her.
Her mother.
The phone rang.
Sarah answered with shaking hands.
No sound.
Then a woman whispered:
“Sarah?”
Twenty years disappeared.
Sarah became nine years old again.
“Mom?”
The line crackled.
Daniel watched tears fill her eyes.
The voice said:
“You have to listen carefully. Wade Sloane knows Nora has the ledger code.”
Sarah looked toward Daniel.
“He’s coming for her.”
Daniel already had his phone out.
Then Sarah’s mother said the words that made every person in the room turn cold.
“He isn’t going to Harbor Point.”
May you like
A pause.
“He’s already inside Baycrest.”
