Chapter 12
Mark didn't hesitate. He grabbed Chloe by the waist and practically lifted her down into the cold, damp concrete opening of the service tunnel, before diving in right behind her. Thomas followed immediately, kicking the wooden floorboard back down into place just as the bedroom door crashed inward under a barrage of federal tactical kicks.
Shouts of frustration and the harsh sweep of tactical flashlights filtered through the cracks of the repositioned floorboards above them.
"Clear the room! Check the perimeter!" Agent Vance’s muffled voice barked from the bedroom overhead.
Chloe huddled against Mark in the cramped, freezing darkness of the concrete tunnel, their breathing ragged and echoing off the low ceiling. The dirt beneath their shoes felt wet and unstable.
"Where does this tunnel lead?" Chloe whispered, her voice trembling as she wiped a smear of soot and dust from her cheek.
"Straight to the old drainage culvert behind the property line," Thomas answered softly, his footsteps crunching quietly ahead of them as he guided them forward using only a small, dim penlight. "Beyond the reach of the precinct's jurisdiction and right into the county archives building."
Mark kept one arm securely wrapped around Chloe’s shoulders, his flashlight illuminating the damp concrete walls lined with rusted water pipes and tangled electrical cables. "You're planning to break into the main records room, aren't you? That's where the original case files from twenty years ago are stored."
"It's not a break-in if you still hold the master key," Thomas replied grimly, slowing his pace as the tunnel began to slope upward toward a heavy iron maintenance hatch.
Chloe reached out, her fingers brushing against the cold metal pipe running along the tunnel wall. A sudden, terrifying thought stopped her dead in her tracks.
"Wait," Chloe whispered, her voice halting both men in their tracks. "If my mother was fighting me over the safe... and Miller and the federal agents are trying to bury the past... what role does my mother actually play in all of this?"
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Thomas turned around slowly in the dim beam of the penlight, his weathered face looking hauntingly pale in the shadows.
"Your mother didn't try to stop the cover-up, Chloe," Thomas said quietly, letting the words drop like heavy stones into the dark water pooled at their feet. "She was the one who signed the original purchase order for the land your father died trying to protect."
