Chapter 158
Chapter 158:
“Done,” Gabriel said. “Are you okay, Skye p>
“No,” Skye said. “I’m angry p>
Back at the Apex warehouse, Seraphina was scrubbing a toilet. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was a text from an unknown number.
Construction at North Il High. They found the bones. Police are on the way.
Seraphina dropped the toilet brush. It splashed into the bowl, spraying dirty water onto her face.
She stared at the screen. The blood drained from her face, leaving her looking like a wax doll.
“No,” she whispered. “No one knows. It’s been ten years p>
Another text followed.
Tick-tock.
Seraphina scrambled backward, slipping on the wet floor. She hit the wall, sliding down until she curled into a ball on the filthy tiles.
Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through her chest.
She needed to check. She had to go back. She couldn’t dig it up, but she had to see if they were really there. She had to see if the secret was out.
If they found the bones, they might find the scraps of the letter she had buried with her in a moment of sentimental stupidity.
She stood, ignoring the mess on her uniform. She ran out of the bathroom, past a confused Hank.
“Hey! Where you going?” Hank yelled.
“Emergency!” Seraphina screamed, bursting out the exit door.
She ran into the night. She didn’t have a car. She didn’t have money. But desperation was powerful fuel. She started running toward the highway.
Skye watched the GPS dot on her tablet moving. She had planted a tracker in Seraphina’s uniform pocket days ago.
“She’s running,” Skye said to herself. “She’s leading us right to the evidence p>
Reс𝗈m𝗺eո𝘥 be.𝖼оm 𝗍o 𝘺о𝗎r 𝘧𝗿𝗂e𝘯𝘥𝘀
She started the car.
“Let’s go to a graveyard,” she whispered.
The night air around North Il High was thick with humidity and the smell of impending rain. The school had been abandoned for three years, a rotting carcass of brick and broken glass in the worst part of the city.
Skye parked the rented black Ford sedan two blocks away, hidden behind a dumpster. She had left the Ferrari at the office. Bringing a million-dollar sports car to a stakeout in the slums would have been tactical suicide. Here, she needed to be a ghost, not a headline.
She watched the screen of her tablet. The red dot representing Seraphina was moving erratically across the overgrown football field.
“She’s searching,” Gabriel’s voice came through Skye’s earpiece. He was positioned on the roof of the old gymnasium with a long-range camera.
“Get the shot, Gabriel,” Skye whispered. “I need her face. I need her panic p>
“I see her,” Gabriel replied. “She’s frantic. She’s pacing around the old goalpost. She’s checking the ground markers. God, Skye, this is grim p>
Skye crept closer to the chain-link fence. Through the gaps, she could see a figure in the moonlight. Seraphina—Sarah—was on her knees in the mud. She wasn’t digging, but she was clawing at the grass, searching for the drainage markers.