CHAPTER 21 — MASON’S PRICE
The armed team entered from three directions.
Rebecca shut down the lights.
Cole overturned the steel table and positioned it across the main hallway.
Dana carried Lily toward the freight elevator.
Margaret took the Number Nine key.
Claire stopped her.
“Where are you going?”
“To retrieve what Sarah wants.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only chance we have.”
Mason pushed a pistol into Claire’s hand.
“The freight elevator leads to the river tunnel.”
“What did Sarah give you?”
His expression hardened.
“Not now.”
“She said you received something.”
A blast tore open the front wall.
Smoke flooded the basement.
Mason pulled Claire behind a printing press.
“She erased my brother’s conviction.”
“What?”
“My younger brother was serving life for a murder he did not commit. Sarah offered proof that would free him.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.”
Claire understood.
“You did everything she asked, and she killed him anyway.”
“Three weeks after our wedding.”
“Yet you continued working for her.”
“She had you.”
He looked toward Lily.
“And then she had her.”
Cole fired toward the hallway.
“Move!”
They reached the freight elevator.
Only four people could fit inside at once.
Dana entered with Lily and Elaine.
Claire tried to help Margaret inside, but her mother stepped back.
“I will take the next one.”
“No.”
Margaret pressed the Number Nine key into Claire’s palm.
“There is something in the chapel beneath the old Vane estate. This opens it.”
Mason moved beside Margaret.
“I’ll stay.”
Claire did not trust either of them.
Another explosion shook the basement.
The elevator doors began closing.
Margaret looked directly at Claire.
“Your father is alive. Find him before Sarah does.”
The doors sealed.
Claire pounded the emergency button.
The elevator descended.
When it reached the river tunnel, Dana found a small motorboat tied to the dock.
They waited for the elevator to return.
It never did.
Cole tried the control panel.
The power had been cut.
Claire called Mason.
No answer.
She called Margaret.
Her mother’s phone rang beneath the blanket Dana had carried downstairs.
“She left it behind.”
A security screen flickered to life.
Footage from the basement showed armed men entering.
Mason and Margaret were gone.
Rebecca rewound the video.
Two minutes before the explosion, Margaret had stood from her chair.
She had walked toward the hidden entrance without assistance.
Mason followed.
Neither had been forced.
Claire watched her mother enter a black vehicle waiting outside.
Margaret turned toward the camera.
She knew Claire would see the recording.
Then she raised one finger to her lips.
The car drove away.
Dana whispered, “She went willingly.”
Claire looked down at the key.
A mark had been scratched into the metal.
Three waves beneath a broken crown.
Cole recognized it.
“That is not the Vane family seal.”
“What is it?”
“The original symbol of Gray Tide.”
Claire’s phone vibrated.
A message from Margaret appeared.
Do not follow me.
A second message arrived.
Sarah is not the only person who needs Lily’s blood.
Then a final photograph loaded.
Margaret sat beside Mason in the black vehicle.
Between them was an open metal case.
May you like
Inside were six frozen vials.
Each vial carried Lily’s name.
