The Choice in the Records Room
Chapter 14 - The Choice in the Records Room
Daniel stepped from behind a row of shelves and pulled the twins away from Thomas.
Police entered from both doors.
Thomas dropped the match. It landed harmlessly on the concrete floor.
The files in the trash can were not soaked in fuel, as he had claimed. He had wanted fear, not flames.
Noah had noticed there was no smell.
Thomas was arrested without further struggle.
Claire knelt and pulled both boys into her arms. Eli buried his face against her shoulder. Noah tried to remain composed until Daniel touched his hair.
Then Noah began to cry.
Daniel froze.
He looked at Claire for permission before moving closer.
She gave the smallest nod.
Daniel wrapped his arms around the boys, and for a few seconds the four of them formed the shape of a family.
But shape was not the same as trust.
At the hospital, doctors confirmed the twins were unharmed. Thomas had frightened them but had not physically hurt them.
Later, Noah told Claire that Daniel had followed her despite police orders because he recognized a hidden service passage in the old courthouse.
“He saved us,” Eli said.
Claire looked through the glass at Daniel speaking with an officer.
“Yes.”
“Does that make him good now?” Noah asked.
The question had no easy answer.
“One good choice does not erase bad ones,” Claire said. “But it can be the first honest choice after them.”
Daniel entered the room carrying two cups of cocoa and one coffee.
He set them down without approaching.
“I am going to plead guilty,” he told Claire. “Fraud, obstruction, whatever the prosecutor files.”
“You could fight.”
“I spent nine years fighting the truth.”
Claire studied his face.
“What do you expect from us?”
“Nothing.”
It was the right answer, which made it harder to hear.
Before leaving, Daniel gave Noah a small brass compass that had belonged to Edward.
“A compass does not tell you where to go,” he said. “It only tells you when you are lying about the direction.”
Noah closed his fingers around it.
The next morning, prosecutors offered Daniel a deal.
He would avoid prison if Claire testified that he had acted entirely under Margaret’s control.
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Everyone expected her to agree.
She did not.
