Chapter 11 - The Night Holloway House Burned
“Who is that?”
June lunged toward the screen.
Cormac enlarged the image.
A person moved behind the counter.
Small.
June’s face went white.
“Mia.”
Her seventeen-year-old dishwasher.
She had returned for her backpack.
Cormac was already running.
They reached the diner before firefighters.
Smoke poured from the roof.
June tried to enter.
Cormac grabbed her.
“Mia!”
“I’ll get her.”
“No!”
But he was already inside.
June screamed his name.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Then Cormac emerged carrying Mia.
Firefighters took her.
She was coughing.
Alive.
Cormac collapsed to one knee.
June reached him.
“You idiot.”
“Apparently.”
She grabbed his face.
Then kissed him.
It lasted only a second.
But both froze afterward.
Ray had arrived.
He saw.
June stepped back.
Pain crossed Ray’s face.
But not anger.
He looked at the burning diner.
Then at June.
“You deserve to keep living.”
June cried harder.
The diner burned until dawn.
Holloway House was destroyed.
Or almost.
Booth six survived.
Charred.
Damaged.
Still standing.
June laughed when she saw it.
“Of course.”
Cormac looked at her.
“What?”
“The most irritating booth survived.”
Ray smiled faintly.
Investigators confirmed arson.
Patrick had ordered it.
But he had made a mistake.
The fire exposed a hidden cavity inside the wall behind the register.
Ray had never known it existed.
Neither had June.
Inside was a metal box placed there by June’s father decades earlier.
More records.
And a cassette tape.
June found an old player.
Her father’s voice filled the ruins.
“If June ever hears this, then I failed to keep this away from her.”
June closed her eyes.
Her father explained everything.
The original criminal network.
Cormac’s father.
Patrick’s early involvement.
Corrupt officials.
But the final name shocked everyone.
Malcolm Voss.
The doctor.
Not Patrick.
Voss had built the network.
Patrick merely inherited it.
Cormac stared.
“Voss is the architect.”
Ray nodded.
“And he’s still free.”
June’s phone rang.
Dr. Voss.
She answered.
“Mrs. Holloway.”
“You burned my diner.”
“No. Patrick did.”
“You ordered Patrick.”
A pause.
“You’re smarter than Raymond said.”
Ray rolled his eyes.
June almost smiled.
Voss continued.
“I have something you want.”
“What?”
“Patrick.”
June’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“Because he has become inconvenient.”
“You want me to trade evidence for him?”
“No.”
Voss laughed softly.
“I want you to trade Cormac Riley.”
June looked at Cormac.
Voss gave her an address.
Then disconnected.
Cormac said, “We use it.”
“No.”
“June—”
“I am tired of men volunteering to die around me.”
Cormac’s gaze softened.
Ray watched them.
Then quietly said, “He loves you.”
June looked at him.
Ray smiled sadly.
“I know what it looks like.”
Cormac said nothing.
June did not either.
Then a firefighter called her toward the rear wall.
They had found something beneath the floor.
A trapdoor.
June stared.
Ray went pale.
“What?”
Ray whispered, “That wasn’t there before.”
The firefighters lifted it.
Concrete stairs descended beneath the diner.
May you like
A light was burning below.
And someone had just moved in the darkness.
