Chapter 17
The Question Bell Wouldn't Answer
Bell did not draw Elise out of the seventh room.
He stood beneath the microphone, listening to the child laugh through the speakers. The sound rose and fell in the same three-note pattern, too clean to be live.
“Where did Nia go?” Elise asked.
Bell looked at the brass key. “I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I was a clerk.”
“You were in the room.”
“I was outside the room.”
“The recording has your voice.”
“A younger man with my voice.”
“You knew about the trial.”
Bell’s face closed. “Everyone in the courthouse knew about the trial.”
“Everyone except me.”
He looked toward the seam where June had disappeared. “June is dangerous.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
The admission left no room for the argument Elise had prepared.
Bell removed the microphone from its cable and placed it in an evidence bag. The child’s laughter stopped.
“The room is compromised,” he said.
“It was compromised before we entered.”
“Then we leave.”
“Not until you tell me what happened to Nia.”
Bell faced her. “Nia was placed with relatives.”
“Which relatives?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember enough to say relatives.”
His jaw tightened. “Her mother disappeared after the fire. The child was moved through a protected placement. The file was sealed.”
“By my father.”
“By the court.”
“You keep changing the subject from people to institutions.”
“Because institutions are where the damage becomes legal.”
He stepped toward the door. Elise saw a thin white line on his cuff, dust from the hidden passage.
“You came here before,” she said.
Bell stopped.
“You knew how to find the room.”
“Mara told me.”
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
The speakers clicked.
Mara’s voice said, “He is lying.”
Bell reached for the wall control.
Elise blocked him. “Did Mara meet you two weeks ago?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“At the river.”
“Why?”
“She asked me to find Nia.”
“And did you?”
Bell’s phone rang. He checked the screen. The caller ID showed JONAH BELL.
He did not answer.
The phone rang again.
This time the speaker picked up the call.
Bell’s own voice filled the room.
“Mara, I found Nia.”
Elise looked at him.
The recording continued.
“She is not with relatives. She is with Vellum.”
Bell tore the phone from the speaker’s connection.
The line went dead.
Elise stepped closer. “Where is she?”
Bell looked at the sealed white door.
“The address is in your wife’s master recording.”
“Where is the master?”
He handed her the brass key.
“Mara hid it in the only place June cannot enter.”
The seventh room’s ceiling opened.
Above the microphone, behind a panel of black insulation, a red light began to blink.
Bell whispered, “The courthouse.”