CHAPTER 8: ARTHUR VALE UNDER ARREST
Smoke rolled beneath the glass ceiling.
Guests cried beneath tables while security officers searched for injuries.
The museum remained standing.
The underground vault doors had buckled, but the foundation held.
I tried to contact Elias.
No response.
Grant’s signal had disappeared.
My mother’s body camera feed was also offline.
“Open the loading bay cameras,” I ordered.
“System failure,” an officer replied. “The blast destroyed the lower network.”
I moved toward the freight staircase.
Two officers blocked me.
“The structure isn’t stable.”
“My mother is down there.”
“We are sending a rescue team.”
“I’m going with them.”
A section of the ceiling crashed behind us.
The decision was made for me.
Everyone was moved into the west gallery while engineers inspected the lower levels.
The politicians and donors who had demanded freedom now sat silently beneath portraits of dead kings.
Their phones had been collected and preserved as potential evidence.
No one looked powerful anymore.
They looked trapped by their own secrets.
Twenty minutes later, Elias’s voice came through the radio.
“Central command, do you copy?”
I grabbed the receiver.
“Elias?”
“We are alive.”
My knees nearly gave way.
“What about Grant?”
A pause.
“He’s injured, but conscious.”
“And my mother?”
“Alive.”
“Rebecca?”
“Missing.”
She had escaped during the explosion.
The rescue team entered through the damaged loading door.
My mother came up first.
The moment she entered the gallery, eleven years of grief became real all over again.
I wanted to run to her.
I wanted to strike her.
I wanted to demand every answer at once.
Instead, I stood still.
She stopped several feet away.
“You look like your grandmother when you’re angry,” she said.
“My grandmother didn’t attend her mother’s funeral while that mother was still alive.”
Pain crossed Helena’s face.
“I deserved that.”
“Where have you been?”
“Trying to dismantle Meridian.”
“You could have contacted me.”
“Arthur watched you constantly.”
“He was my father.”
“He was also the most dangerous member of the network.”
A stretcher emerged from the stairwell.
Grant lay on it with burns along one arm and blood near his temple.
His eyes found me.
“Did it work?”
“The museum is still standing.”
He closed his eyes.
“Good.”
“That does not erase what you did.”
“I know.”
Paramedics carried him away.
My mother watched him go.
“Grant may be the only person who can identify where Gideon escaped.”
“We also have Samuel.”
Helena looked across the gallery.
Samuel Hawthorne’s medical chair was empty.
The officer assigned to guard him lay unconscious behind a display case.
Samuel had disappeared during the panic.
Two founders had escaped.
The Meridian drive was missing.
Rebecca had betrayed us.
And my father was still attempting to control the lockdown from Vale headquarters.
Then the main entrance alarm sounded.
The steel security shutter began rising.
Elias reached for his weapon.
“I did not authorize that.”
“Neither did I.”
A line of federal agents waited outside.
Their blue jackets carried the insignia of the Department of Justice.
Behind them stood local police officers, emergency medical crews and reporters.
The lead agent entered the gallery.
“Which one of you is Mara Vale?”
“I am.”
He approached and displayed his credentials.
“Special Agent Daniel Mercer.”
“The building is an active evidence site.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then secure every exit. Gideon Holloway and Samuel Hawthorne escaped through the underground tunnel.”
Agent Mercer looked toward Elias.
“The tunnel has already been sealed.”
“Did you capture them?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
He removed a folded document from his jacket.
“To execute a federal warrant.”
“For Grant?”
“No.”
“My father?”
“Not exactly.”
He handed me the document.
The warrant carried my name.
MARA HELENA VALE.
Conspiracy.
Unlawful detention.
Obstruction of a federal investigation.
Illegal surveillance.
Attempted theft of protected cultural property.
I read the charges twice.
“This was issued before the museum sealed.”
“Three hours before,” Agent Mercer confirmed.
Someone had known what I planned to do.
Someone had prepared to turn my evidence operation into a crime.
Two agents approached with restraints.
My mother stepped between us.
“You cannot arrest her.”
Mercer looked at Helena.
“We can also arrest a legally deceased woman for using multiple false identities.”
The central screen activated one final time.
My father appeared from his study.
Police officers stood behind him.
Arthur Vale’s hands were restrained.
“Mara,” he said, “do not speak to anyone.”
Agent Mercer turned toward the screen.
Arthur continued.
“The federal team inside the museum has been compromised.”
Mercer reached for his radio.
My father raised his voice.
“Rebecca Shaw is not the fourth heir.”
Everyone stopped.
“She is a federal operative.”
Mercer drew his weapon.
Elias moved in front of me.
My father looked directly into the camera.
“And Mara, the Meridian Ledger was never inside Rebecca’s case.”
I felt something vibrate inside my silver clutch.
I slowly opened it.
Beneath my phone rested a small black biometric drive.
The Meridian Ledger.
A green light flashed across its surface.
BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE ONE CONFIRMED.
Then a second message appeared.
SIGNATURE TWO DETECTED NEARBY.
Everyone in the gallery turned toward Grant Holloway’s stretcher.
But Grant was unconscious across the room.
May you like
The signal was coming from someone standing much closer.
Someone directly behind me.
