Chapter 5 - Buried Alive
Darkness swallowed the room.
Nora heard metal groan somewhere overhead.
Someone shouted.
A flashlight snapped on.
Then another.
Dean’s first reaction was not to protect himself.
“Nora?”
“I’m here.”
He found her hand in the dark.
She held on.
Adrian noticed.
He said nothing.
Detective Kim moved toward the tunnel.
“Everyone stay back.”
Smoke drifted down the stairs.
The explosion had collapsed part of the entrance.
Radio signals were weak underground.
The officers tried anyway.
Static.
Nothing.
Adrian examined the archive room.
“There’s another exit.”
Dean looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“I found building plans years ago.”
“And never mentioned them?”
“We weren’t exactly sharing childhood memories.”
Nora cut in.
“Can we save the family therapy for after we’re not buried underground?”
Both men looked at her.
Adrian almost smiled.
Dean did not.
But he moved.
They searched the walls.
Victor had built the archive as a bunker.
Emergency power.
Air filtration.
Water.
Even an old landline.
Dead.
Of course.
Nora checked Dean’s wound.
Blood had started seeping through again.
“You need to sit.”
“No.”
“You’re doing that thing again.”
“What thing?”
“Pretending your body is a rumor.”
Adrian laughed.
Dean glared.
Nora pushed Dean into a chair.
“Stay.”
Adrian leaned against a shelf.
“She talks to you like a dog.”
Dean said, “And yet I like her more than you.”
The humor lasted only seconds.
Detective Kim found a narrow maintenance corridor behind a movable shelf.
It led deeper underground.
Adrian recognized it.
“The exit should open near the lake.”
They began moving.
Dean leaned on the wall.
Nora stayed beside him.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one person.
Halfway through, Margaret stopped.
“I can’t.”
Nora looked back.
“You can.”
“No.”
“I can’t breathe.”
Panic.
Nora returned to her.
“Look at me.”
Margaret’s chest heaved.
“Slow.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
Nora took her hand.
The same way she had taken Dean’s.
“Follow my breathing.”
Margaret did.
Slowly.
In.
Out.
Again.
Dean watched from ahead.
Something in his expression softened.
When Margaret stabilized, they continued.
The maintenance exit ended at another steel hatch.
Locked electronically.
Emergency power was failing.
Adrian pulled out a multitool.
Dean stared.
“You carry that?”
“I had hobbies.”
“You stabbed people.”
“That was also a hobby.”
Nora shook her head.
“Both of you are exhausting.”
Adrian bypassed the panel.
The door clicked.
Fresh air rushed in.
They emerged behind the boathouse.
Police outside had already surrounded the property.
Fire crews fought the blaze near the collapsed tunnel entrance.
Everyone was alive.
But Mercer had escaped with the central ledger.
Or so he thought.
Back in the ambulance, Margaret suddenly said, “The ledger wasn’t the evidence.”
Dean looked at her.
“What?”
“Victor knew paper could be stolen.”
“Then what was the ledger?”
“An index.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“To what?”
Margaret looked toward the archive room.
“The tapes.”
Dean remembered the shelves.
Hundreds of old cassette tapes.
Some labeled with dates.
Some with initials.
Mercer had taken the ledger.
But police had recovered the archive.
If the ledger indexed the recordings, Mercer had stolen the map while leaving the treasure.
Detective Kim immediately ordered everything seized.
By noon, federal investigators were involved.
Charles Mercer appeared on television that afternoon.
Calm.
Polished.
He condemned the “criminal violence” at Dean Campbell’s Wisconsin property.
He denied any connection.
He suggested Dean’s criminal enemies were responsible.
Then he announced he would cooperate fully with law enforcement.
Nora watched from Dean’s hospital room.
“He’s good.”
Dean lay propped against pillows.
“He’s been lying professionally for thirty years.”
Adrian stood near the window.
Police had not arrested him.
Not yet.
His involvement remained complicated.
He had brought armed men.
He had known about the murder plot.
He had manipulated hospital access.
But he had also apparently prevented Dean’s death by placing Nora in the room.
Detective Kim treated him as both suspect and witness.
Dean treated him like a brother he wanted to punch.
Neither man knew what to do with the other.
Nora did.
“Talk.”
They both looked at her.
“No,” Dean said.
“Yes.”
Adrian laughed.
Dean glared.
Nora crossed her arms.
“Twenty-two years of resentment almost got both of you killed.”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“I didn’t try to kill him.”
“You helped create the circumstances.”
Dean looked at Adrian.
Nora continued.
“You thought Dean stole your inheritance.”
Adrian looked away.
“Didn’t he?”
“No,” Margaret said from the doorway.
Everyone turned.
She carried a small document box recovered from the archive.
“Victor left this separately.”
Inside was a copy of his original will.
Thirty percent to Adrian.
Seventy percent to Dean.
Then another document.
A trust.
Created three weeks later.
For Adrian.
Worth almost exactly the same amount.
Adrian stared.
“What is this?”
Margaret explained.
Victor had not disinherited him.
He had hidden his inheritance under another corporate structure to protect Adrian’s identity.
But after Victor’s death, the trustee vanished.
The trust assets were transferred through shell companies.
Eventually they disappeared.
Adrian sat down.
“Who took them?”
Dean already knew.
“Mercer.”
Margaret nodded.
Adrian’s entire adult life had been built on a lie.
Mercer had stolen his inheritance.
Then allowed Adrian to believe Dean had taken it.
Anger hardened Adrian’s face.
Dean watched him.
“You should have asked me.”
Adrian looked up.
“You didn’t know.”
“I would have looked.”
“You never looked at me like a brother.”
“I didn’t know you were one.”
Silence.
Adrian turned away.
Nora saw his eyes shine.
He refused to let anyone else see.
Dean saw anyway.
“Idiot,” Dean said quietly.
Adrian laughed once through his nose.
“You always were sentimental.”
Then Dean’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A distorted voice spoke.
“Mr. Campbell?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know me.”
“Usually how unknown numbers work.”
Nora rolled her eyes.
The caller continued.
“I worked for Senator Mercer.”
Dean became still.
“For how long?”
“Eleven years.”
“What do you want?”
“Protection.”
“For what?”
“I know where the original recordings were duplicated.”
Dean sat straighter.
“Where?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Then where?”
The caller gave an address.
An abandoned union hall on Chicago’s South Side.
Midnight.
Alone.
Dean almost laughed.
“No.”
“If you bring police, I’m gone.”
“Then be gone.”
The caller paused.
Then said something that erased all humor from Dean’s face.
“I also know who ordered Victor Campbell’s murder.”
Dean stood.
Nora immediately blocked him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“We’ve done this.”
“Yes, and you keep failing to learn.”
Adrian said, “I’ll go.”
Dean turned.
“Absolutely not.”
Nora stared at both.
“You are literally brothers.”
Both men looked offended.
The meeting was arranged under police surveillance.
Dean would remain in a nearby vehicle.
Adrian would enter.
Nora was supposed to stay at the hospital.
She did not.
Dean discovered this when she climbed into the surveillance van.
“You were told to stay.”
“So were you.”
“That’s different.”
“Because you’re rich?”
“Because I’m the target.”
“And I’m the nurse who keeps the target alive.”
He had no answer.
At 11:58 p.m., Adrian entered the abandoned hall.
Audio transmitted through a wire.
Footsteps.
A chair scraping.
A man’s voice.
“I don’t have much time.”
Adrian asked, “Who are you?”
“Evan Blake.”
Dean recognized the name.
Mercer’s former finance director.
Blake sounded terrified.
“I copied records years ago. I thought they were insurance.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe deposit box.”
“Which bank?”
Before Blake answered, a gunshot cracked through the audio feed.
Nora jumped.
Police moved.
Dean reached for the door.
Detective Kim stopped him.
“Stay.”
Another gunshot.
Then silence.
The team stormed the building.
Dean ignored Kim and followed.
Nora followed Dean.
Inside, they found Adrian behind a pillar.
Alive.
Evan Blake lay on the floor.
Shot.
Nora rushed to him.
He was breathing.
Barely.
She pressed gauze against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Blake looked at her.
His lips moved.
“What?”
He whispered one word.
“Locker.”
“Which locker?”
He coughed blood.
Nora leaned closer.
“Tell me.”
“Union Station.”
Then his eyes closed.
Paramedics rushed in.
Nora stood.
Dean looked at her.
“Did he say anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
She opened her mouth.
Then every light in the hall went out.
Someone screamed.
A shot echoed from the balcony.
Dean shoved Nora to the floor.
Police fired upward.
Glass shattered.
When the lights came back, Adrian was gone.
Dean stared at the empty space beside the pillar.
Then his phone vibrated.
One message.
From Adrian.
DON’T FOLLOW ME.
A second message appeared.
HE HAS NORA’S ADDRESS.
Dean slowly turned toward her.
Nora’s blood went cold.
Then her own phone rang.
The caller ID showed her younger sister’s name.
Nora answered.
“Emily?”
May you like
A man replied.
“Not anymore.”
