The library went black, but Natalie’s face continued glowing from the shattered phone on the table.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then a gunshot tore through the darkness.
Wood splintered beside my cheek.
I dropped behind the heavy desk as the silver-haired attorney screamed and glass shattered somewhere near the bookshelves.
Gabriel shouted Marco’s name.
A second shot answered him.
Natalie’s recorded voice continued through the chaos, calm only because she had already accepted what might happen to her.
“Gabriel signed a sealed cooperation agreement fourteen months ago,” she said from the phone.
“The operation is called Augustine.
Only four people know the full scope.
Gabriel.
Me.
His attorney, Samuel Price.
And the federal case officer.”
The emergency lights flickered red along the floor.
I saw Marco near the library doors, his pistol extended toward Gabriel.
Gabriel had overturned a chair and was crouched behind it, one hand pressed against his upper arm.
Blood darkened his sleeve.
Marco fired again.
Gabriel rolled behind a marble column.
I did not have a weapon.
The guards had taken everything from my handbag, including the small folding knife I carried while traveling.
But they had missed the brass key I had slipped from the evidence case into my sleeve when Marco moved toward his jacket.
Our parents had taught Natalie and me that almost any object could become useful if panic did not steal the seconds needed to understand it.
The key was old, heavy, and sharply cut.
I crawled beneath the desk as Marco approached the phone.
“Turn that off,” he ordered.
Natalie kept speaking.
“Someone inside Gabriel’s organization learned about Augustine.
He began altering the financial ledgers and moving weapons through companies Gabriel believed were inactive.
When I found the duplicate accounts, he threatened me.”
Marco kicked the phone.
It spun across the floor but did not stop playing.
Gabriel rose behind him.
“You knew where she hit the barrier,” he said.
Marco turned and fired.
Gabriel dropped before the bullet reached him, then drove his shoulder into Marco’s waist.
They crashed against the table.
The pistol skidded beneath a leather sofa.
Marco was larger, but Gabriel fought like a man with nothing left to protect except the truth.
He struck Marco once across the jaw.
Marco answered with an elbow to Gabriel’s wounded arm.
Gabriel fell back with a strangled breath.
Marco reached under his coat and pulled a knife.
I came out from behind the desk and slammed the brass key into the back of his hand.
He roared.
The knife dropped.
I kicked it toward the attorney.
“Samuel,” I said.
“Pick it up.”
The attorney stared at me.
“Now.”
He grabbed the knife with both hands and backed against the wall.
Marco swung at me.
