Chapter 12 - THE FIRE UNDER THE STAINED GLASS
The chapel filled with smoke in seconds.
Officers pulled at the fallen beams blocking the front doors. Detective Park shouted into her radio, but the fire had damaged the signal.
Bianca disappeared into the crypt passage with Celeste.
Lorenzo came toward me. “Give me Leo.”
“No. Show me the way out.”
A section of stained glass cracked above us.
Matteo pointed to the sacristy. “There’s a priest’s exit behind the cabinet.”
We ran.
The old door opened into a narrow stone corridor that sloped downward instead of outside.
“The plans showed a river exit,” Park said.
“It may be flooded,” Matteo warned.
“We don’t have another choice.”
I kept Leo’s face covered with a damp cloth. His breathing became shallow.
“Stay with me,” I whispered. “You fought too hard to stop now.”
The corridor split in two.
One path led toward the river.
The other carried the sound of Celeste crying.
Lorenzo looked at me.
“Go with Park,” he said. “I’m getting them.”
“Bianca will kill her.”
“I know.”
Matteo followed him.
Park led me through ankle-deep water toward a rusted gate. Behind us, the chapel roof groaned.
The gate would not open.
Park fired at the lock, but the bullet struck metal and ricocheted into the wall.
“Bad angle,” she muttered.
Leo stopped crying.
I looked down.
His lips had gone pale.
“No.”
I sat in the freezing water and stimulated his back. “Come on, Leo. Breathe.”
Park dropped beside me.
The gate shook from the other side.
Then a bolt cutter snapped through the chain.
Firefighters pulled us into the rain.
A medic took Leo, but his tiny hand stayed wrapped around my finger until the last second.
“He has a pulse,” the medic said. “We need oxygen now.”
I followed the stretcher toward the ambulance.
An explosion rolled beneath the chapel.
Stone cracked. Flames burst through the roof.
Lorenzo and Matteo were still inside.
Another team moved toward the crypt entrance.
Then a figure emerged from the vineyard, coughing and dragging Celeste by the arm.
Lorenzo.
Matteo came behind him carrying a metal document case.
Bianca was not with them.
“She escaped through the north tunnel,” Lorenzo said.
Celeste collapsed on the grass. “She has Dr. Hale. They’re going to the courthouse.”
“The courthouse is under police control,” Park said.
Celeste shook her head. “Not the public courthouse. Judge Carmichael’s private chambers.”
Matteo opened the metal case.
Inside were original trust documents and a ledger of payments to hospital staff, judges, and security contractors.
At the bottom lay a sealed envelope addressed to Lorenzo.
In Sofia’s handwriting.
He opened it beneath the flashing ambulance lights.
The letter contained one sentence.
THE PERSON WHO HELPED BIANCA MOST IS THE PERSON YOU STILL BELIEVE SAVED SOFIA’S LIFE.
Lorenzo looked toward Dr. Hale’s name in the ledger.
May you like
Then Celeste whispered, “Hale didn’t save Sofia.”
“He made sure she never woke up.”
