Chapter 5 - THE FIRE ESCAPE
"Get away from her!" Nora screamed, throwing herself between Vance and her mother.
Vance didn't flinch. He merely tilted his head, his dark eyes void of any human warmth. He was impeccably dressed, unbothered by the snow melting off his expensive wool coat.
"Nora Ellis," Vance murmured, looking her up and down. "You have your father’s stubborn chin. And unfortunately, his terrible habit of taking things that don't belong to him."
He raised the pistol, aiming it directly at Nora’s chest. "The ledger. The blueprint. Now."
Sarah grabbed the edge of the kitchen table. "Leave her alone, Marcus! She doesn't know anything!"
"She knows enough," Vance said smoothly. His eyes shifted to Thomas, who was paralyzed by the door. "And you, Tom. I told the board you were getting sentimental in your old age. Trying to run away with the only evidence that could bury us. Did you really think you could make it to a train?"
Nora’s mind raced. The blueprint and the ledger were on the table behind her. The pocket watch was still in her hand, hidden by her sleeve.
She looked at her mother. Sarah’s eyes darted frantically toward the window leading to the fire escape. A silent communication passed between them—a mother and daughter who had survived on unspoken cues for four years.
"I'll give them to you," Nora said, her voice shaking just enough to sound terrified. She slowly reached behind her back, her fingers brushing the ledger.
But instead of grabbing the papers, her hand closed around the heavy ceramic teapot Sarah had left on the counter.
With a scream, Nora hurled the pot straight at Vance’s face.
Vance ducked, the teapot shattering against the wall in a spray of scalding water and ceramic shards. In that split second, Sarah grabbed the ledger and the blueprint, shoved the window open, and pushed Nora out onto the rusted iron fire escape.
"Go!" Sarah yelled.
Nora tumbled out into the freezing night air, Thomas right behind her. They scrambled down the icy metal grates.
Thwip.
A silenced bullet sparked against the iron railing inches from Nora’s hand.
They reached the alley and sprinted toward the crowded neon lights of a nearby 24-hour diner. Vance wouldn't shoot them in a crowd. They burst through the diner doors, the bell ringing sharply, and slid into a back booth, gasping for air.
Nora checked her pockets. She still had the silver watch. Sarah had the documents. They were all breathing.
But when Nora looked at her mother, Sarah was staring at Thomas with absolute disgust.
"You ordered the steel," Sarah whispered, her voice venomous over the diner's cheap country music. "All these years, I thought you were just a coward who looked the other way. But you signed the purchase orders. You saved millions. And when David figured it out, you let Vance kill him to cover your own tracks."
Thomas looked down at his trembling, liver-spotted hands. "I was bankrupt, Sarah. Twenty years ago, Hale Transit was weeks away from collapse. If I didn't cut costs on the Hudson bridge, the company would have folded. Ten thousand people would have lost their jobs. I thought the steel was good enough. I didn't know how brittle it was until it was too late."
"And my father?" Nora asked, her voice cracking. "Was his life the cost of doing business, too?"
"Vance handled the problems," Thomas said, a tear finally spilling down his wrinkled cheek. "I didn't ask how. I just... I let him do it. But the guilt has eaten me alive every single day. That's why I paid for your college, Nora. That's why your tuition was always miraculously covered by an 'anonymous scholarship'."
Nora felt the breath knocked out of her. The scholarship. The only thing that had kept her afloat. It wasn't a reward for her hard work. It was blood money.
She stood up, nauseated. "I don't want your money. I want to stop that concrete pour tomorrow morning."
Sarah shook her head despairingly. "Nora, it's 2:00 AM. The pour starts at 6:00. Even if we find an honest cop, getting a judge to issue an injunction to halt a city project takes days."
Nora looked out the diner window at the snow falling over the city. She thought about the commuter trains. She thought about the maintenance cart she pushed every night.
"We don't need a judge," Nora said, a fierce, reckless light suddenly burning in her eyes. "If we physically lock the tracks at the main switchyard, no maintenance trains can get in to pour the concrete. And no commuter trains can cross the bridge."
Thomas stared at her. "The switchyard is a fortress. Everything is electronically controlled from the tower."
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Nora reached into her pocket and pulled out her heavy ring of maintenance keys. Attached to the very end was an old, odd-shaped brass key she had kept since childhood. Her father’s key.
"Not everything," Nora said.
