Chapter 32 - Trapped Above the Lake
The Owner’s Penthouse was immediately sealed.
Federal technicians collected the cigarette butt.
Security footage was reviewed.
Nothing.
Nathan had entered through a blind spot in an old service corridor.
“He knows the property,” James said.
“Someone taught him.”
Or someone inside was helping him.
At 11:30 p.m., federal agents instructed everyone to leave the penthouse.
Gerald and Charlotte took the elevator.
I stayed behind for two minutes to retrieve Arthur’s framed blueprint from the wall.
That decision nearly killed me.
As I crossed the sitting room, the lights went out.
Total darkness.
Then I heard the service door close.
My body went completely still.
“James?”
No answer.
I reached for my phone.
No signal.
A figure moved near the windows.
“Nathan.”
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“You’ve caused an extraordinary amount of damage.”
My heart hammered, but I forced my breathing to remain slow.
“You broke into the wrong preschool teacher’s hotel.”
He laughed softly.
“You really do believe your own mythology.”
Moonlight from the lake outlined him.
Tall.
Late fifties.
Dark coat.
He held something in his hand.
Not a gun.
A small metal device.
“What do you want?”
“The archive index.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Arthur created one.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
He stepped closer.
“My family spent three generations containing Arthur Sinclair’s obsession with morality.”
“Interesting way to describe evidence of crimes.”
“You think business is clean?”
“I think burning children’s homes is dirty.”
His jaw tightened.
“I never ordered threats against children.”
“Everyone says that.”
“I ordered pressure.”
“That’s what cowards call terror when they pay other people to perform it.”
He moved closer.
Then the fire alarm sounded.
For half a second, Nathan looked startled.
I ran.
He grabbed my arm.
I swung the heavy blueprint frame into his face.
Glass shattered.
Nathan cursed.
I tore free and sprinted toward the main corridor.
Smoke began filling the penthouse.
He had set a fire.
The elevator was disabled.
I ran toward the emergency stairs.
Locked.
Nathan had chained the exterior handle.
My lungs tightened.
“Maya!”
James’s voice came faintly through the door.
“I’m inside!”
“Move back!”
Something slammed against the stair door.
Again.
Smoke thickened.
Nathan disappeared into the service corridor.
I crawled low.
Another impact.
The stairwell door burst open.
Gerald came through first.
Not James.
Gerald.
He wrapped his coat around my shoulders.
“Come on!”
“What are you doing here?”
“I saw the lights go out from the driveway!”
James and security rushed behind him.
Federal agents entered the service corridor.
They didn’t find Nathan.
But they found the escape route.
An old maintenance lift descended directly to the lower kitchen level.
Security cameras captured Nathan exiting in a chef’s jacket and cap.
By the time police secured the grounds, he was gone.
The fire was contained quickly.
Damage was limited to Arthur’s study.
I sat in an ambulance outside the resort, oxygen beneath my nose.
Gerald remained beside me.
His hand was bleeding from smashing the stair door mechanism with a fire extinguisher.
“You came back.”
He looked confused.
“Of course I came back.”
A strange ache moved through my chest.
There had been a time when my father would have protected his reputation before protecting me.
Tonight, he ran into smoke.
“You could’ve been hurt.”
“So could you.”
Charlotte arrived crying and threw her arms around me.
Derek came thirty minutes later, still wearing his municipal work uniform.
When he saw Gerald’s bloody hand, he stared.
“You broke down the door?”
Gerald shrugged.
“It was locked.”
Derek laughed through tears.
For one brief moment, despite smoke, police lights, lawsuits, and thirty years of damage, we were simply family.
Then a federal agent approached.
“Ms. Patterson, we found something in the burned study.”
He handed me a metal plate that had fallen from behind the wall.
Arthur’s handwriting was engraved into it.
THE INDEX IS WHERE CHILDREN CROSS WITHOUT FEAR.
May you like
I knew exactly where he meant.
The bridge.
