Chapter 32: The Panic Door

The gun went off.

Dr. Valmont gave a surprised grunt and folded to his knees, one hand clamped to his thigh. The orderlies roared and charged. Four men in dark coats surged forward to meet them. In the cramped cellar, with wine racks toppling and glass shattering, the world dissolved into noise.

"Inside!" Vivienne shrieked.

She seized Elara's arm and dragged her backward into the vault. The notebooks slid in Elara's grasp. Her mother's vial, still open, still warm, was clenched in her other hand.

She understood in a flash.

The door would stay open as long as the scent held the panel. It had opened for the vial. It would close when the vial left.

She backed into the vault, pulling the vial with her.

The sensor blinked red.

With a deep mechanical groan, the great steel door began to swing shut.

"Ellie!"

Julian's face appeared in the narrowing gap, white and wild, his gun hand thrust through the opening. She saw his lips pull back from his teeth. She saw him understand.

The door slammed.

The lock engaged with a thud like a coffin lid.

Silence fell.

Then, muffled by a foot of steel, came the sound of Julian's fists, hammering on the door, and his voice, hoarse and cracking.

"Open it! Open it!"

Elara leaned against the cold wall, breathing hard. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Beside her, Vivienne slid down to the floor with a ragged laugh.

"He cannot get in," she whispered. "Nobody can get in. It was built to be impossible."

"And we can't get out." Elara looked at the vial. It was nearly empty, the glass thin and cold in her fingers. "There's maybe one use left in this."

"Then we wait."

"For what?"

Vivienne had no answer.

Julian's voice came again through the steel, thin and distant, strangely calm now. "Power's off down here, Ellie. Father's men are cutting the line to the building. This vault runs on a battery. I give you an hour."

The lights flickered and died.

Darkness came down thick and absolute.

Elara closed her eyes. It made no difference. She breathed in, slow and deep, and let her nose do the work her eyes could not.

Steel and old paper. Dust. Vivienne's cold, thin fear. The sweetness of leather and ink from the notebooks in her arms.

And, from the far wall, so faint it might have been a trick of the dark, something she had learned to listen for.

Cool. Damp. Green.

Rain.

She went very still.

"What?" Vivienne breathed.

"There is air moving." Elara got to her feet and felt her way along the rough steel shelves. "Julian said the Swiss built it. They never build anything without a way out."

"A vault does not have a way out."

"This one does."

Her fingertips found a seam. A line of cold metal at the back, almost invisible, set into the steel behind the bottom shelf. She dropped to her knees and swept the notebooks aside. Her fingers closed on a small iron wheel, stiff with disuse.

She turned it.

With a shriek of rusted metal, a square panel swung inward on the stone.

Cold air poured through.

Elara almost laughed. She dragged Vivienne through, and they crawled on their hands and knees through a low brick tunnel that smelled of mud and old water. Behind them, the vault's emergency lamp flared once and went dark.

The tunnel sloped down. Elara's hands slid on slick stone. She clutched the notebooks to her chest and did not stop.

Behind them, faint and furious, Julian's voice echoed down the passage. He had found the panic door.

They ran.

The tunnel opened into an old Roman sewer, a high vaulted passage with a trickle of black water running down its center. Vivienne was limping badly. Elara slung an arm around her waist and half-carried her along the ledge.

Ahead, around a bend in the passage, a thin shaft of yellow light cut the dark.

A flashlight.

Elara stopped. Her heart hammered.

Footsteps splashed in the water, steady and unhurried. The light swung toward her face and held. She threw up a hand against the glare.

"I told you," said a voice she knew, low and rough with exhaustion. "I would hear you, if you said my name."

The light dipped.

Rhys Calloway stood in the tunnel in a torn black coat, a cut across one cheekbone, a steel handcuff dangling from his left wrist. His gray eyes were fixed on her face. For one long moment, he did not move.

Then Elara dropped the notebooks and walked straight into him.

His arms came around her hard. He did not say a word. She felt his heart pounding against her cheek.

"Brandt let me go," he said at last, his voice rough against her hair. "He turned. I'll explain everything." He drew back and looked at her, and the relief in his face turned slowly to something else. "But I need to tell you something first."

Her stomach dropped.

"What?"

"It is Odette," Rhys said quietly. "She left the hospital an hour ago."

"Left? Priya had a guard on her—"

"She walked out the front door on her own two feet. Conrad Hart's car was waiting at the curb." His jaw tightened. "The security camera shows her getting in. Nobody forced her, Elara. She went willingly."