Chapter 107 - The Bastard’s Brand
"She’s killed him," I breathed, horror freezing the blood in my veins. "She shot Bradley."
"He was the only thing keeping her tethered to reality," Vance said, his voice deadly quiet. "Now she has nothing left to lose. Move faster."
We reached the foot of the spiraling iron staircase that descended into the foundation vault beneath Lock 11. The water here was deeper, swirling around our ankles, freezing cold and black as pitch. The walls were no longer reinforced concrete; they were hand-hewn river boulders laid during the reconstruction of the canal in the late nineteenth century.
Julian leaned against the rusted railing of the staircase, his skin glistening with fever sweat. "In the corner... Katherine. Look for the surveyor's mark. The iron cross set into the masonry."
Vance swept the light across the wet stone wall until the beam caught an ancient iron medallion embedded between two massive blocks of granite. It was stamped with the seal of the New York Canal Commission, 1888. Beneath the seal, a small, square keyhole had been drilled directly into the mortar.
"The key," Julian said, his breathing growing dangerously shallow. "Arthur kept the original baptismal registry from the Bennington clinic inside that cavity. Along with the unamended articles of the 1928 Trust. The only copies that Bradley and Evelyn couldn't burn."
I pulled the heavy brass key from my pocket. The notch slid into the iron plate with a scraping sound that sent chills down my arms.
Before I could turn it, the sound of footsteps echoed on the iron stairs above us.
Not hurried. Not frantic.
Slow, deliberate, and dragging.
"Did you really think the maintenance tunnel went all the way to the covered bridge, Julian?" Melissa’s voice descended from the gloom of the stairwell. "Arthur had that exit sealed with ten tons of crushed stone in 1994 when the canal board condemned the overflow basin. You led them into a dead-end cellar."
Vance turned instantly, leveling his weapon at the spiral stairs. "Federal Marshal! Drop the weapon and put your hands behind your head, Melissa! Step into the light!"
Melissa emerged onto the landing ten feet above us.
She was covered in river mud and splattered with Bradley's blood across the chest of her jacket. In her hands, she held the twelve-gauge shotgun she had taken from the scrap-yard thug, the twin barrels pointed directly at the center of my chest.
May you like
Her eyes were wide, glassy, and completely detached from the world around her.
"Give me the key, Katherine," she said softly, a terrifyingly sweet smile spreading across her lips. "Give it to me, and maybe I'll let Vance drag your body out before the lower floodgates open."
