Chapter 8
The First Witness
Emergency lights came on in red strips along the floor.
Voss did not move. Bell drew his weapon, though there was no visible target. Elise remained beside the table, staring at the folder with her name.
The speaker repeated her recorded voice.
“I found the room under the courthouse.”
Then another voice answered.
Mara’s voice.
“You weren’t supposed to find it yet.”
The recording was not live. Elise could hear the compression, the slight flattening of the room. But the fear in Mara’s answer was real enough to make Elise’s skin tighten.
Bell looked at Voss. “Shut down the system.”
“The system is already shut down,” Voss said.
“Then explain the speaker.”
“I can’t.”
It was the first honest sentence he had given them.
The conference-room door unlocked. A woman entered carrying a maintenance case. She was in her thirties, with black hair pulled into a loose knot and an orange producer’s badge clipped to her sleeve.
“Lena,” Elise said.
Lena stopped when she saw the gun.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
Bell lowered the weapon by an inch. “You work for Vellum?”
“I work for Northbank.”
Voss said, “Lena has a contract with both.”
“You said Mara was frightened,” Elise told her. “You said you didn’t know who she argued with.”
Lena set down the case. Her hands shook.
“I knew she argued with Adrian.”
Voss’s gaze sharpened. “That is not what happened.”
“It is what happened.”
The speaker clicked again.
Mara said, “Lena, if you are in the room, do not tell Elise about the first witness.”
Lena’s face changed.
Elise turned toward her. “Who is the first witness?”
Lena looked at Bell, then at Voss, and finally at the folder.
“It was supposed to be you,” she said.
“Supposed to be?”
“Mara recorded a witness profile for you. She said you were the only person who could identify the room without being told what it was.”
“I have never been there.”
“You have.”
The red emergency light pulsed. Each flash changed the room: table, folder, faces; table, folder, faces.
Lena opened her maintenance case and removed a small metal drive.
“Mara gave me this at 6:35,” she said. “She told me to deliver it to Elise if she didn’t come back.”
Bell reached for it.
Lena pulled it away. “Not to the police.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Mara did.”
Elise took the drive. Its surface was warm.
The conference-room wall turned transparent again. Outside, on the roof of the courthouse, a single light switched on.
The drive vibrated in Elise’s palm.
Her phone displayed a new message from an unknown number.
WITNESS 01 HAS ARRIVED.
Underneath was an address.
It was Elise’s childhood home.
The sender added one final line:
Bring the judge’s daughter. Leave the wife behind.