Chapter 5 - Six Minutes Of Air
The darkness inside the Blue Room did something terrible to time.
A second felt like a minute.
A breath felt like a decision.
I could hear Hannah trying not to panic beside me.
I could hear Elias moving along the wall, one hand striking metal shelves as he searched by touch.
I could hear my own heart beating too fast for a room that was slowly becoming harder to breathe in.
"How long?" Hannah asked again.
Elias did not answer immediately.
That frightened me more than any number could have.
"If they are flooding the room with carbon dioxide at full capacity, maybe six or seven minutes before we are too impaired to help ourselves."
"Maybe less."
Hannah laughed once, without humor.
"Wonderful."
I pressed my sleeve over my mouth even though I knew it would not help.
Carbon dioxide was not smoke.
There was nothing to filter.
My broken ribs made every breath shallow already.
Now each breath seemed to bring less air than the one before it.
"There has to be another exit," I said.
"Government rooms have emergency exits."
"Not always," Elias answered.
A flashlight clicked on.
He had wrapped his hand around the lens so only a thin strip of light escaped between his fingers.
"But they do have service access."
He moved toward the rear wall.
I followed the beam.
The shelves ended near a steel cabinet labeled VENT CONTROL - 1974.
Elias yanked it open.
Most of the switches were dead.
One old analog pressure gauge trembled just above zero.
"Fresh-air intake is shut," he said.
"Can we reopen it?"
"Not from here."
Hannah pointed toward the floor.
"What about that?"
A rectangular grate sat beneath the bottom shelf.
Elias knelt and pulled at it.
The screws were rusted.
He used the brass key as a makeshift screwdriver until one screw turned.
Then another.
My head began to ache.
I felt strangely warm despite the cold room.
"Faster," I whispered.
"I am aware of the situation."
The third screw snapped.
Elias tore the grate away.
Behind it was a narrow maintenance duct, no wider than a laundry chute.
Cold air did not rush out.
That was bad.
"Does it go anywhere?" Hannah asked.
Elias shined the light inside.
"Down."
"How far?"
"No idea."
I leaned against the wall as dizziness washed through me.
"We are not staying here to find out."
Elias looked at my leg.
"You cannot crawl through that with the boot."
I bent and tore the straps loose.
Pain detonated through my shin.
I almost vomited.
"Now I can."
Hannah grabbed my arm.
"Nora."
"Move."
Elias went first.
He disappeared feet-first into the duct and lowered himself until only his hands showed.
"There is a ladder."
"About twelve feet."
"Then a horizontal tunnel."
Hannah followed.
I went last.
Getting my injured leg into the opening was agony.
For several seconds I became wedged between the grate frame and the shelf.
My chest tightened.
The room seemed to tilt.
Grant's face flashed through my mind.
If Elias is showing you this, then I failed to stop something before it reached you.
"Nora!" Hannah called from below.
I forced my shoulders through.
The rusted ladder cut into my palms.
I descended mostly on my right leg.
When I reached the bottom, Elias caught me around the waist.
"Can you walk?"
"No."
"Can you move?"
"Yes."
"Good enough."
The maintenance passage was barely four feet high.
We crawled through mud, cables, and decades of dust while the flashlight beam bounced ahead of us.
The air was stale but breathable.
Behind us, a dull alarm began sounding inside the Blue Room.
Hannah looked back.
"What is that?"
Elias smiled grimly.
"Probably the system complaining that its victims escaped."
The duct narrowed after fifty feet.
A rusted grate blocked our path.
Beyond it, I heard running water.
Elias kicked once.
Nothing.
Twice.
The grate bent.
On the third kick it broke free and vanished into darkness.
A splash followed.
"That sounds far down," Hannah said.
Elias crawled forward and looked out.
"Old drainage culvert."
"Drop is maybe eight feet."
"Into water?"
"Into very cold water."
Hannah stared at him.
"I am beginning to dislike every option you offer."
A metallic bang sounded behind us.
Someone had opened the Blue Room door.
Voices followed.
"They're gone."
"Check the vent."
Elias pushed Hannah toward the opening.
"You can complain outside."
She dropped first.
A second later, she shouted that she was okay.
Elias went next.
I looked back once.
A narrow white beam appeared at the far end of the maintenance tunnel.
Someone had found the open grate.
"I see them," a man called.
I pushed myself through the opening.
For a terrible instant my coat snagged on a bolt.
A flashlight beam struck my shoes.
"Nora Whitaker!"
The voice was familiar.
Martin Hale.
I had met Charles's brother-in-law twice at Christmas parties.
He had seemed forgettable then.
Middle-aged.
Clean-cut.
Quiet.
Now his voice carried through a tunnel designed to suffocate me.
"Stop running."
"We can still make this painless."
I ripped my coat free and fell.
The water hit like ice.
My injured leg struck the rocky bottom.
I screamed underwater.
Elias dragged me upright before the current could pull me downstream.
"Move!"
We stumbled through waist-deep water beneath the mountain.
The culvert sloped downward.
The flashlight behind us grew brighter.
A gunshot cracked through the tunnel.
Stone chips struck the wall beside Elias's head.
Hannah screamed.
"They are shooting at us!"
"That is usually what the sound means," Elias shouted.
"Not helping!"
Another shot echoed.
We turned a corner.
Moonlight appeared ahead through a curtain of rain.
The culvert emptied into the creek fifty yards below the cabin.
We crawled onto the bank.
Elias grabbed a branch and pulled me uphill.
"Truck?" Hannah gasped.
"Too exposed."
"Then where?"
I looked toward the cabin.
Lights had appeared in the great room.
Three men moved behind the windows.
A fourth figure stood on the porch.
Laurel.
She wore a dark raincoat and held an umbrella while men searched the home Grant had loved.
My anger burned through the fear.
"We need to hear what they're saying."
Hannah looked at me as though my concussion had worsened.
"We need to leave."
Elias crouched beside me.
"Nora is right."
Hannah stared at him.
"I officially hate both of you."
Elias took a small receiver from his pocket.
"The Blue Room had a camera."
"I saw the wire before the lights went out."
"If Martin was monitoring us, the feed may run through the cabin network."
He pointed toward the old generator shed.
"Grant had a hardwired security hub in there."
We moved through the trees until we reached the shed.
The door was unlocked.
Inside, Elias found the network cabinet and connected a small recorder to one of the lines.
Static filled the headphones.
Then voices.
Martin first.
"They took the red box."
Laurel answered.
"I told Charles Grant had made copies."
My body went rigid.
Another man spoke.
"The boy says Nora has the key."
Laurel snapped.
"The boy says whatever he thinks will keep me from being angry."
There was contempt in her voice.
Not concern.
Not love.
Contempt.
Hannah looked at me.
Even after everything Evan had done, hearing his mother speak about him that way hurt.
Martin lowered his voice.
"You pushed him too hard."
"He almost stayed at the crash."
"Because he panicked."
"Because he is seventeen."
Laurel laughed.
"He was old enough to cut the brake line."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
A direct admission that she knew.
Elias raised one finger, reminding us not to speak.
Martin continued.
"Charles says Collins can keep the investigation pointed at Nora for another day, maybe two."
I looked sharply at Elias.
Deputy Collins.
The same man who had questioned me in the hospital.
The same man who had access to my clothes and the planted evidence.
"Collins is theirs," Hannah mouthed.
Elias did not react, but his face hardened.
Laurel spoke again.
"Then we have two days to find Arthur's original ledger and Grant's real will."
"After that, I do not care what happens to the ridge."
Martin said something too softly to hear.
Then Laurel answered clearly.
"No."
"Evan cannot know what happened to Grant."
Every hair on my arms rose.
Martin sighed.
"He will figure it out eventually."
"Then eventually becomes a problem."
Silence filled the headphones.
I thought I had misunderstood.
Hannah's face said she had heard exactly what I had.
Martin spoke carefully.
"He is your son."
Laurel's answer came without hesitation.
"He is Grant's son."
"That is why he was useful."
Something inside me broke.
Evan had tried to murder me.
He had photographed me dying.
He had asked a stranger to make sure I was dead.
I owed him no sympathy.
Yet Grant had loved that boy.
And Laurel was discussing him like disposable evidence.
Martin asked, "What if he talks?"
"He won't."
"Why are you so sure?"
Laurel's voice became almost amused.
"Because I recorded him cutting the brakes."
"If Evan turns on me, he goes down first."
The connection crackled.
For several seconds, we heard only footsteps and drawers opening inside the cabin.
Then Martin spoke again.
"The sheriff's report is ready."
Laurel answered, "Does it still say Nora accelerated before the guardrail?"
"Yes."
My stomach tightened.
The Subaru's event recorder could show throttle position.
I had pressed the accelerator briefly when the brakes first failed because I was trying to maneuver away from an oncoming truck before I understood what was wrong.
Taken out of sequence, that data could make it look as though I deliberately sped toward the curve.
Martin continued.
"Collins says the event data will be confusing enough for television."
Laurel laughed softly.
"Television only needs one number."
That sentence taught me more about the conspiracy than any hidden ledger.
They did not need perfect evidence.
They needed memorable evidence.
A note.
A bottle.
A box cutter.
A speed number.
One simple object at a time until the public stopped asking harder questions.
Hannah squeezed my hand.
I could feel her anger trembling through her fingers.
Martin said, "What about the trucker's statement?"
Laurel's voice became sharper.
"Discredit him."
"How?"
"Charles will know."
The connection crackled again.
Then another voice entered the room.
Charles Voss.
"Enough."
I had never heard him sound angry before.
"Stop discussing the boy."
"Where is Nora?"
Martin answered.
"Gone."
"Then find her."
Charles's voice dropped.
"Before she finds the hunting blind."
I pulled off the headphones.
Hunting blind.
Grant's letter flashed through my mind.
The original will is not in a bank.
I placed it where my father told me he hid the one document Laurel never found.
You already know the place.
I did know it.
Arthur's old hunting blind stood on a ridge above the creek.
Grant had taken me there on our first weekend at the cabin.
The blind itself had collapsed years ago, but one thing remained.
An iron stove bolted to a stone platform.
Grant had laughed when he told me his father hid emergency cash inside the stove's false ash tray because Laurel hated dirt and never touched it.
"I know where the will is," I whispered.
Elias disconnected the recorder.
"Then we move now."
A twig snapped outside the generator shed.
We froze.
The door handle turned slowly.
Elias reached for the pistol in his belt.
The door opened.
Evan stood there alone.
Rain covered his hair.
May you like
He held a rifle pointed directly at my chest.
"You really should stop surviving," he said.
