Chapter 10 Ashes to Ashes

Smoke, very much like the long grasping fingers, floated through the bookstore.

Charles Calloway's men blocked the exits; their silhouettes were twisted by the flames growing hotter. The tiny flame in his palm reflected demonic shadows onto his override face while he repeated, "Last chance, Lena. The diary."

Ryan coughed beside her as he swayed his injured body. But his grip on her hand was iron.

Lena's thoughts were all engines firing. The diary in her pocket felt like a live grenade-her grandmother's last words, Ryan's father's murder, all the proof they needed. But Charles would burn the entire block to ash before letting it go public.

Then she remembered.

"The tunnel," she whispered to Ryan.

His eyes lit up with that which had been comprehended. The old rumor her grandmother would laugh about: a smuggling passage under the shop dating back to Prohibition.

Charles moved in closer. "What was that?"

Lena lunged toward the antique cash register, ripping it open. The coins exploded across the floor as she pounded her palm over the location of the hidden button under the drawer-her grandmother's show her when she was eight.

"Go!" She was shoved toward the dark maw just as Charles roared and threw the lighter.

A shelf of vintage paperbacks caught fire and raced toward them. Ryan barely made it into the tunnel before Lena yanked the lever inside, closing the hatch with a thud that drowned out Charles' enraged scream.

Darkness impeneterable.

Ryan's breathing was laborious as the two of them felt their way along the damp brick walls. "You've been hiding some stuff from me, Carter," he said.

Her laughter bordered on hysterical. "Grandma said it's for emergencies."

"And a little arson doesn't qualify?"

The tunnel sloped down, colder the farther they walked. After trekking what felt like miles (but was probably just two blocks), they hit a rusted ladder leading upwards.

Ryan went first, shouldering the heavy grate aside with a pained grunt. They came out from behind the boarded-up bakery on Harbor Street-just timing the incoming fire trucks that screamed past toward the bookstore.

The sirens wailed in the distance. Not the only fire engines around. Police.

Lena retrieved the diary. The cover was singed, but the damning pages were intact. "We have to move. They'll search everywhere."

Ryan caught her wrist. "I know where to go."