Chapter 4 - The Clock Ticks
The acrid white smoke cleared slowly as the library's high-power emergency exhaust fans kicked in, humming loudly overhead.
I was on the floor, my arms wrapped around Lucas and Leo, covering their faces with my wool cardigan to protect their fragile lungs. They were shivering, terrified by the sirens and the dark, but they were unharmed.
Vincent rushed over, pulling all three of us into his arms. His heart was hammering wildly against his chest. "Are you hurt? Are they okay?"
"We're fine," I gasped, wiping tears from my smoke-stung eyes. "Where is Blake?"
"He ran into the east gardens," Vincent said, his face cold and hard. "My perimeter team is sweeping the grounds now, but the storm is heavy. He knows the property layout."
"Forget Blake for a second," I said, pulling the small glass bottle of amber liquid out of my handbag. "We need to identify this chemical right now. If Blake knows he's caught, he might try to destroy his lab records in Hartford. If those records vanish, we won't know how to reverse the long-term organ damage in Lucas and Leo."
Vincent stood up, his posture rigid. The exhaustion that had weighed him down for eighteen months was entirely gone, replaced by a terrifying, focused resolve.
"Mrs. Harper!" Vincent shouted into the hallway.
The house manager appeared at the door, her face pale, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Mr. Moretti, I swear on my life, I didn't know what Dr. Blake was doing in the basement! He told me it was air purification!"
Vincent looked at her for a long, heavy moment. "If you want to stay out of prison for negligence, Mrs. Harper, you will take my sons to the master safe room downstairs. You will lock the door from the inside, and you will not open it for anyone except me or Claire. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir! Immediately!" She ran over, gently gathering the twins into her arms.
"Miss Claire?" Lucas whimpered as Mrs. Harper lifted him. "Are you coming with us?"
I leaned down and kissed his cheek. "I have one more job to do, Lucas. Then I'll come build that pillow fortress. I promise."
Once the boys were safely secured in the subterranean safe room, Vincent turned to me. "My private helicopter is on the helipad behind the stables. Weather is bad, but my pilot can get us to Hartford in fifteen minutes. Blake’s research lab is on the fourth floor of the Biotech Plaza."
"Let's go," I said.
We ran through the torrential downpour toward the helipad. The rain felt like ice against my skin, but my blood was boiling. As the helicopter's rotors began to roar, cutting through the dark storm clouds over Connecticut, Vincent handed me a noise-canceling headset.
"My team tapped Blake’s cell phone ten minutes ago," Vincent said over the comms system as the chopper lifted into the air. "He's heading straight for his laboratory. He's planning to burn the building down to cover his tracks."
"He's going to destroy the patient files," I realized, terror gripping my chest. "The exact chemical formulas, the dosage logs, the blood test histories—if those burn, medical toxicologists will have to guess at the treatment. It could take months of trial and error to heal Lucas and Leo!"
"We won't let him," Vincent said grimly.
The fifteen-minute flight felt like an eternity. Below us, the glowing lights of Hartford appeared through the rain-streaked windows. The chopper banked sharply, descending onto the roof of a modern, glass-and-steel laboratory complex.
As soon as the skids touched the concrete, Vincent and I bolted out into the rain, sprinting toward the rooftop access door.
Inside, the building was eerily quiet. The night-shift staff had already gone home. We rushed down the stairwell to the fourth floor, entering a long, sterile corridor lined with frosted glass doors.
At the far end of the hallway, light was flickering beneath the door marked Blake Neurological Research Lab.
We approached soundlessly. I peered through the narrow glass pane beside the door frame.
Inside, Dr. Blake was frantically throwing hard drives, paper files, and chemical logbooks into a heavy steel burn barrel in the center of the room. He had already poured a trail of liquid accelerant across the floorboards. In his hand, he held a glowing plasma lighter.
"He's about to light it," I whispered, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Vincent looked at me, his jaw set like granite. "Stay behind me."
Vincent kicked the heavy laboratory door with raw, explosive force. The lock snapped, and the door slammed open against the wall.
May you like
Blake spun around, his face illuminated by the harsh overhead fluorescents and the faint blue spark of his lighter.
"Stay back, Vincent!" Blake shrieked, holding the lighter directly over the fuel-soaked papers. "One step closer, and I drop this! Everything burns! You'll never know what I gave your precious boys! They'll rot from the inside out, and you'll have to watch them die knowing you could have saved them!"
