Chapter 4
THE BOY IN THE TUNNEL
Nia screamed Caleb’s name until her throat tore.
Security flooded the library.
Harper dropped beside her father.
The bullet had grazed Daniel Voss’s upper arm, leaving a bloody furrow but missing bone. A medic pressed gauze to the wound while the governor tried to stand.
“Forget me,” he snapped. “Find the boy.”
For once, Nia agreed with him.
Captain Ortiz searched the room with her weapon raised.
There was no broken window.
No open exterior door.
Only the hidden archive panel.
Ortiz stepped inside and examined the back wall.
“Governor,” she called. “What’s behind this?”
Daniel looked up.
“Stone.”
Ortiz ran her hand along the shelving.
“No. Air.”
She pulled a metal storage rack away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow opening.
A tunnel.
Harper stared.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
Daniel looked genuinely shocked.
“I didn’t know.”
Nia pushed past everyone.
The tunnel dropped into darkness.
Ortiz caught her arm.
“You stay behind me.”
“My nephew is down there.”
“And if the shooter is too, running blind gets you both killed.”
Nia hated every word but obeyed.
Two troopers entered first.
Ortiz followed.
Nia went next.
The tunnel was old brick, barely wide enough for one person. Electrical cables had been added recently along the ceiling. The air smelled of damp soil and something sweeter.
Caleb’s memory struck her.
Smoke.
Sweet smoke.
Cherry pipe tobacco.
Nia stopped.
“Do you smell that?”
Ortiz turned.
A faint trace hung in the passage.
“Yes.”
They moved faster.
Twenty yards in, the tunnel forked.
A child’s voice echoed from the left.
“Aunt Nia!”
She ran.
Caleb stood beside an old iron ladder, frightened but unharmed.
Nia crashed into him and held on.
“I told him I wouldn’t go,” Caleb said into her shoulder.
“Who?”
“The man.”
“Did you see him?”
Caleb shook his head.
“He had a mask.”
“What happened?”
“He grabbed me when the lights went off. But I bit him.”
Despite everything, Nia almost laughed.
“Good.”
“He dropped me. Then I ran.”
Ortiz crouched.
“Which way did he go?”
Caleb pointed toward the second branch.
“He took the box.”
The stolen metal case.
Ortiz radioed the officers.
They pursued.
Nia remained with Caleb.
“What did the man say?” she asked.
“He said Mom should’ve kept running.”
Nia’s blood chilled.
“Exact words?”
Caleb nodded.
“And he said, ‘You’re supposed to be dead too.’”
Nia looked toward the darkness.
The tunnel opened two hundred yards away beneath a detached carriage house outside the main security fence.
By the time police reached it, the attacker was gone.
But he had left something behind.
A bloody handprint on the brick.
Caleb had bitten him hard enough to break skin.
Ortiz ordered DNA rushed to the lab.
Then she did something Nia did not expect.
She took them out of the governor’s residence.
“This location is compromised,” she said.
Daniel protested.
Ortiz ignored him.
Harper refused to leave without Nia and Caleb.
Ethan insisted on coming too.
Nobody trusted him enough to argue.
They relocated to an old state emergency operations bunker beneath the courthouse, a windowless concrete facility built during the Cold War and renovated for disaster response.
Nia hated the irony.
Riverglass evidence had been hidden inside government walls for years.
Now they were hiding from it inside another one.
At 8:43 p.m., Ortiz entered the conference room with a file.
“The blood from the tunnel is already in CODIS.”
Everyone stood.
Nia’s heart raced.
“Who?”
Ortiz looked at Governor Voss.
“Warren Pike Jr.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
Harper whispered, “He died.”
Ortiz set the file down.
“Apparently he did not.”
The room went silent.
Nia opened the file.
Warren Pike Jr. had been officially identified after a house fire four years earlier. Dental records had confirmed the body.
Ortiz tapped the report.
“The dental comparison was performed using records submitted by a private dentist.”
“Whose dentist?” Nia asked.
“Richard Cole’s.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Harper looked at him.
“Your father again.”
“I don’t know anything about this.”
“You have said that so many times it’s starting to sound like a family motto.”
Ethan recoiled.
Nia understood Harper’s anger, but she also saw something in Ethan that looked real.
Fear.
Not fear of exposure.
Fear of his father.
“Tell us about Richard,” Nia said.
Ethan sat slowly.
“He was admired in public.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“In private he was difficult.”
“What does difficult mean?”
Ethan looked at Harper, then away.
“He believed loyalty was a debt. If he did something for you, he owned part of you afterward.”
“Did he work for Warren Pike?”
“No. Warren worked through him sometimes. Legal cleanup. Settlements. Threat letters. Confidential agreements.”
“Blackmail?” Ortiz asked.
Ethan hesitated.
“Yes.”
Harper stared.
“And you knew none of this?”
“I knew my father was ruthless. I did not know he was involved in Riverglass until after he died.”
“When did you find out?”
“Three years ago.”
Harper’s face changed.
They had met three years ago.
Exactly.
“You found out and then met me.”
Ethan stood.
“No.”
“When?”
“Two months before.”
“How did we meet, Ethan?”
“At the museum benefit.”
“Where you approached me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He said nothing.
Harper laughed bitterly.
“Finally. Something you do know.”
Ethan looked at her.
“My father left me a letter.”
The sentence quieted the room.
“What letter?”
“He said he had done things for Warren Pike that he regretted. He said Celeste Voss had proof. He believed she kept it close to her family.”
Harper’s eyes filled.
“So you came looking for evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And you found me.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever love me?”
Ethan’s face broke in a way Nia had not seen before.
“Yes.”
“That isn’t good enough.”
“I know.”
Harper turned away.
Caleb, sitting at the far end of the room with crackers, watched them both.
Nia sat beside him.
He whispered, “He looks sad.”
“He probably is.”
“Can sad people be bad?”
Nia looked at Ethan.
“Yes.”
“Can bad people be sad?”
“Yes.”
Caleb considered this.
“That’s confusing.”
“Most true things are.”
Ortiz opened another file.
“The tunnel attacker being Warren Jr. changes Maya’s case. He was first officer at her apartment. He may have staged her disappearance.”
Nia felt the words physically.
“Then find him.”
“We’re trying.”
“Try harder.”
Daniel Voss spoke quietly.
“There may be a way.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Warren Sr. had a cabin near Riverglass. Officially it was sold after Junior died. Unofficially, I believe Warren kept access.”
Ortiz frowned.
“Why?”
“Because Celeste followed him there once.”
Harper spun.
“When?”
“Six months before she died.”
“And again, you never mentioned this.”
Daniel rubbed his wounded arm.
“I learned after her death.”
“How?”
“She kept a journal.”
Harper stared.
“Where?”
The governor hesitated.
Nia wanted to scream.
“The journal, Daniel.”
He looked at Harper.
“Your mother hid it in your childhood piano.”
Harper’s anger vanished beneath surprise.
“My piano is still at the lake house.”
Daniel nodded.
Ortiz immediately shook her head.
“No one is going to the lake house tonight.”
“Why not?” Harper asked.
“Because Warren Pike just tried to abduct a child through a tunnel inside the governor’s residence.”
Caleb raised his hand.
Everyone looked at him.
“He didn’t try.”
Ortiz blinked.
“What?”
“He wasn’t taking me.”
Nia turned.
“What do you mean?”
Caleb wiped cracker crumbs from his fingers.
“He kept asking me where Mom put the key.”
The adults went still.
“What key?” Nia asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did your mom ever give you a key?”
He thought.
Then his eyes widened.
“My dinosaur.”
“What dinosaur?”
“The green one.”
Nia knew it.
A cheap plastic stegosaurus Caleb had carried everywhere as a toddler. After Maya vanished, it had gone into a box with his baby things.
“Where is it now?”
“At home.”
Nia stood.
Ortiz said, “Nobody goes anywhere.”
Nia looked at her.
“If Warren Jr. is asking Caleb about a key Maya hid five years ago, then he thinks we still have it.”
“That makes your house dangerous.”
“Which means if the key is there, somebody may already be looking for it.”
Ortiz was silent for two seconds.
Then she reached for her radio.
They sent a tactical unit first.
At 10:07 p.m., Nia’s small townhouse was cleared.
The front door showed no damage.
The alarm had not triggered.
But Caleb’s room had been searched.
Drawers open.
Closet emptied.
Toy boxes overturned.
Nia stood in the doorway with Ortiz and felt rage settle into something cold.
Caleb walked past them.
“My dinosaur isn’t here.”
Nia looked at the empty shelf.
“Where did you put it?”
He frowned.
“Mom’s box.”
Nia’s heart skipped.
She kept one sealed plastic container of Maya’s belongings in the attic crawlspace. Police had searched it years ago.
Nobody had touched it since.
Nia climbed the ladder.
The box was still there.
She carried it down.
Inside were scarves, old press badges, a broken camera lens, birthday cards, and the green plastic stegosaurus.
Caleb grabbed it.
“There.”
Nia turned it over.
Nothing.
Then Caleb pressed one of the back plates.
A hidden seam opened along the toy’s stomach.
Something tiny fell into Nia’s palm.
A brass key.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
R-17.
Harper whispered, “Riverglass?”
Nia looked at Ortiz.
The captain’s face had changed.
“What?” Nia asked.
Ortiz pointed to the key.
“R-17 isn’t Riverglass.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen that key type before.”
“Where?”
Ortiz took a breath.
“Evidence lockers beneath the old courthouse.”
Ethan looked toward the concrete ceiling above them.
“We’re already under the courthouse.”
Ortiz nodded.
“There are seventeen sealed archive cages in the level below this bunker.”
Nia looked at the tag again.
R-17.
The last one.
The lowest level had been closed for twelve years after a pipe rupture.
According to state records, nothing remained down there.
At 10:31 p.m., Ortiz opened the rusted stairwell door.
The group descended single file.
At the bottom was a corridor of old wire cages.
R-17 stood at the far end.
Nia inserted Maya’s key.
The lock clicked.
Inside sat one cardboard evidence box.
No label.
No dust.
Someone had visited recently.
Nia lifted the lid.
Inside was a red canvas camera bag.
Maya’s.
Caleb began crying before Nia did.
She opened it.
Three film canisters.
A notebook.
A motel key card.
And a disposable phone.
The phone was dead, but someone had written a date on the back.
TODAY.
Captain Ortiz found a charger.
They connected it.
The screen came alive.
One unread voicemail.
Timestamp: 9:52 p.m.
Thirty-nine minutes earlier.
Nia pressed play.
Static.
Breathing.
Then a woman’s voice.
Older.
Tired.
Unmistakable.
“Nia, if you found the bag, Warren found me.”
Nia stopped breathing.
Maya.
Alive.
The message continued.
“Do not trust Daniel Voss. Do not trust Ethan Cole. And whatever you do, do not let Caleb remember the place with the blue door.”
A crash sounded in the background.
Maya whispered one last sentence.
May you like
“He saw what happened there.”
The line went dead.
