Chapter 5 - The Forgotten Station
Arabella ran barefoot through the rain.
She had taken Rosa’s shoes, but they were too large and had fallen off in the alley. Her lungs burned. The cold air cut through her borrowed sweater.
She did not know exactly where she was going.
She only knew the melody had unlocked a memory.
Grand Central Terminal.
A brass key.
Locker 317.
Her father’s voice had returned as clearly as if he were running beside her.
If anything happens, Bella, go where the stars are painted on the ceiling.
She crossed Lexington Avenue against the light. Horns screamed. A taxi missed her by inches.
Behind her, black vehicles emerged from the townhouse garage.
Dante was coming.
That frightened her less than the possibility that Richard’s men were coming too.
Grand Central’s main concourse was crowded despite the late hour.
Arabella entered through a side door and stopped beneath the blue-green celestial ceiling.
The place looked familiar.
Not as a shelter. Not as somewhere she had begged for change.
As somewhere she had once walked beside her father.
She remembered wearing a red coat.
She remembered Charles Vale buying her hot chocolate.
She remembered him saying, “People hide secrets in mansions. Smart people hide them where no one stops moving.”
Locker 317 was no longer in the main terminal. Most public lockers had been removed years earlier.
Arabella’s hope collapsed.
Then she remembered another detail.
A private luggage service beneath the old tracks.
She hurried down a corridor marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
A security guard saw her.
“Ma’am, you can’t go down there.”
She kept walking.
He caught her arm.
Arabella reacted instinctively, twisting free and striking him with the side of her hand.
The guard stumbled, shocked.
She was equally shocked.
Someone had trained her.
Before he could radio for help, Dante appeared.
“She’s with me.”
The guard recognized him and decided his hourly wage was not worth the conversation.
Dante followed Arabella into the lower corridor.
“You climbed out of a third-story window.”
“The front door had armed men.”
“They were protecting you.”
“I’ve heard that sentence too many times.”
Dante held up the brass key.
“You forgot this.”
She snatched it from him.
“You followed me.”
“You left a rope hanging from my window.”
“I didn’t ask you to come.”
“No. You simply ran toward the busiest transportation hub in New York while a sniper was looking for you.”
She glared at him.
“Are you always this annoying?”
“Only when I’m worried.”
The honesty silenced her.
They found the old luggage room behind a steel gate.
An elderly attendant sat inside reading a newspaper.
When Arabella showed him the key, his expression changed.
“That number hasn’t been used in years.”
“Is the locker still here?” she asked.
He studied her face.
Then he reached beneath the desk.
“Mr. Vale paid for permanent storage. He said someone might come.”
Arabella’s hands shook.
“Did he describe me?”
“He said you would have his eyes.”
The attendant led them through a narrow room lined with metal boxes.
Locker 317 stood at the back.
Arabella inserted the key.
It would not turn.
“Wrong key?” Dante asked.
“No.”
She examined the lock.
Then she remembered her father’s lion ring.
She pressed the crown-shaped mark on the key’s handle.
A second tooth slid out.
The lock clicked.
Inside was a music box identical to Rosa’s, a sealed envelope, and a small handheld video camera.
Arabella opened the envelope first.
Bella,
If you are reading this, I failed to protect you.
Trust no member of our family until you understand what Richard has done. The explosion will be blamed on mechanical failure. It was not an accident.
The Vale inheritance is not the reason he wants you dead. It is the reason he needs you alive first.
You carry access he cannot obtain without you.
Find Dr. Eleanor Shaw.
She knows what was placed beneath your skin.
I love you more than every ship, building, or dollar carrying our name.
Dad.
Arabella read the letter twice.
“What was placed beneath my skin?” she whispered.
Dante looked at the surgical scar behind her ear.
The answer seemed obvious.
Before he could speak, the lights went out.
The elderly attendant shouted from the front room.
A silenced shot followed.
Dante pulled Arabella behind the lockers.
Footsteps entered.
At least four men.
Dante handed Arabella a small knife.
“Stay here.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“Probably not tonight.”
He moved into the darkness.
The first attacker rounded the corner.
Dante struck him before the man saw him, crushing his throat against the metal lockers. He seized the attacker’s weapon and fired twice.
Another man fell.
Arabella heard movement behind her.
She turned.
A masked attacker grabbed her hair.
For one terrifying second, she was back in the white room.
Hands.
Straps.
The metronome.
But this time her hair was short.
This time she had a knife.
She drove the blade into the man’s thigh, twisted, then struck his throat with the heel of her palm.
He collapsed.
Dante stared at her from across the room.
“You said you didn’t remember being trained.”
“I didn’t.”
“You remembered quickly.”
The final attacker fled.
Dante chased him toward the front gate, but a steel security door slammed between them.
The attacker escaped.
Arabella knelt beside the elderly attendant.
He was bleeding from the shoulder but alive.
Dante called his private doctor.
Then Arabella picked up the video camera.
Its battery was dead.
Inside the music box, however, they found a charger and an old memory card.
Dante connected it to a laptop in the attendant’s office.
The first video showed Charles Vale sitting inside his yacht’s study.
He looked frightened.
“Arabella,” he said to the camera, “Richard has been using Vale Medical transports to move people who do not officially exist.”
The image shook.
“He has judges, doctors, and federal contractors working with him. The program is called Lazarus.”
Arabella gripped the desk.
Charles continued.
“They erase identities. They rebuild people into assets. Your mother discovered it before she died.”
Arabella stared at the screen.
Her mother had supposedly died of cancer when Arabella was twelve.
The video continued.
“She was not sick, Bella. Richard killed her.”
A noise sounded behind Charles.
He looked toward the door.
“If you survive, find Eleanor Shaw. And never allow Richard to scan the implant behind your ear.”
The video ended.
Dante turned toward Arabella.
“Implant.”
She touched the scar.
A tiny red light appeared on the laptop.
The memory card had connected to an unknown network.
Dante ripped it out.
Too late.
A map opened on the screen.
A blinking dot appeared beneath Grand Central Terminal.
Their exact location.
Then a message appeared.
May you like
THANK YOU FOR ACTIVATING THE KEY.
Above them, the station’s fire alarms began to scream.
