At the last second before the door shut, someone grabbed Eliana’s arm. She spun around and saw her sister right behind her.
“You can’t go anywhere,” Maizie said. “Remember, you have to stay with me.”
“This isn’t about running from a bomb. I need to check the vault. I think someone is going to try to break in.”
Maizie shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t have to,” Eliana told her. “You’re a police captain, and this is a situation that needs a police captain to take control of it. I’m going downstairs where I won’t be in danger of being blown to pieces.”
Maizie let go of her arm.
Eliana turned and ran down the hall, taking the stairs instead of the elevator. But that only reminded her of the dead police officer they’d found at the hospital. Carlos’s partner, murdered because of these people. Because they wanted to use this situation tonight to break into the vault?
There was definitely a big piece of this puzzle that she was missing.
That, and the fact that this seemed like it might be more than one puzzle.
Eliana shook her head, pushing out the door onto the basement level where the vault was. No idea how her mom did this on a regular basis, trying to figure out what people were thinking—what they were planning.
She drew the knife from its sheath, deciding to hold it in her hand. Regardless of what was going on, she wanted to be able to defend herself.
She slowed her step, listening to the faint sound of voices carrying to her. At the corner, she stopped and peered around to where the door of the vault was.
Raquel Maloney had Tony on his knees at the scanner, his eye angled to that green light.
“Insert for stage two.”
She pulled Tony back from the scanner, and he fell to the floor, blood in his hair. More dripping down his beard from his mouth. His hands were bound in front of him. Beaten and barely conscious.
Raquel surveyed the mechanism, then grunted and pulled Tony’s hand up. Inserted his finger to where it would take a drop of his blood and then let her into the vault.
“Stop!” Eliana stepped into view.
She didn’t have a whole lot of loyalty to the Shrine and its secrets, but she knew better than anyone the threat of what lay within that vault and the ways it could destroy people’s lives.
“You aren’t getting in there.”
Raquel looked over her shoulder, sweat on her hairline. Dressed in a green gown—enough of a disguise to get into the gala. But someone should’ve noticed her on the security system. She should never have been allowed entry.
“I’ll give you credit,” Eliana said. “You managed to talk your way into the event and all the way down here before someone realized what you were doing.”
“You think you’re the one who’s going to stop me?”
“Sending in someone with a bomb to turn the gala into chaos was a decent distraction. But that’s all it was. I’m guessing the bomb is a fake?”
Raquel’s expression grew tense for a second, almost as if she didn’t know what Eliana was talking about. “I’m here for one thing only.”
“And what is that?” Eliana wasn’t going to allow her into the vault—and neither was the vault.
The door whirred.“Enter passcode.”
Eliana folded her arms, but that only drew attention to the fact she was holding a knife.
Raquel didn’t have any visible weapons, and there wasn’t much she could hide in that dress. Tony should have had a pistol on him. Wherever it was now, it wasn’t going to come in handy for her.
“I don’t know the code, just in case you’re curious,” Eliana told her.
Raquel smirked. “And if I told you that Wallace will peel your boyfriend’s skin from his body unless you tell me the code, how about then?”
