Whoever had come through that window was trying not to be heard. They reached the library. Cade got the door open and Octavia went in first and he followed, pulling the door shut behind him. The key was on the interior side, an old brass thing, the kind that actually required effort, and he turned it and heard the tumblers engage. The library was dark.
No windows meant no outside light, and the power was still out. Octavia clicked on the headlamp he'd given her back in the cellar and angled it low. The room smelled of old paper, and the particular dry warmth of books stored in a heated space. four walls of shelving from floor to ceiling, a reading table in the center, two leather chairs, a desk in the far corner with a lamp that wasn't working. He's going to check the sitting room first, Cade said, keeping his voice at the lowest functional level.
When he doesn't find us, he'll start clearing rooms. How long do we have? 10 minutes. 15. The beacon you activated.
It's registered. Someone's monitoring it, but the storm hasn't broken enough for a helicopter. and the roads blocked. He leaned against the door and listened. They're not going to make it up here in the next 15 minutes.
Octavia stood in the middle of the room with the headlamp and looked at him. She didn't say anything for a moment. He could see her thinking, not panicking, actually thinking, and he appreciated that she didn't fill silence with noise just to manage her own fear. " What do you need?" she asked. "
Something heavy enough to hold the door if the lock doesn't. and I need to know if there's anything in this room I can use. She moved without hesitation. She'd spent years in this house and she knew every room, the way people know spaces they've lived in, not by description, but by muscle memory. She went to the desk in the corner and pulled open the bottom drawer and came back with a fire poker.
Long solid wrought iron. She held it out to him. There's also a letter opener on the desk. That's more letter than opener, she said. and a marble bookend on the second shelf that weighs approximately what a person's arm weighs after you've been holding it for 30 seconds.
He almost smiled. The poker's good, I thought it might be. He wedged the poker through the door handle at a downward angle, the way he'd seen done, and knew worked on inward opening doors. The handle couldn't turn if something rigid was seated beneath it at the right angle and pressed against the floor. It wasn't a guarantee, it was a delay.
Then they waited. Waiting was the worst part. Not the danger itself, but the waiting for it. The stretch of time when imagination was doing more damage than anything real. Cade had learned this about himself when Brin was small.
In the emergency room, the first time she'd run a fever high enough to frighten him. The waiting was the thing that hollowed you out. The actual crisis, when it arrived, gave you something to do with all that adrenaline. He stood to the side of the door, away from the line the poker would travel if someone forced it. Octavia stood behind the reading table, not hiding.
Exactly. Just putting solid furniture between herself and the door. She still had the headlamp. She clicked it off. Dark.
Quiet. The storm outside pressing against the walls. They heard him at 8 minutes. Footsteps in the corridor. Measured, not hurried.
Someone who knew the layout or was moving carefully enough to figure it out as he went. The footsteps stopped outside the library door. The handle turned, held, turned again harder. Cade stood absolutely still with his back against the shelving and his eyes on the door and didn't breathe. 3 seconds of silence, then a voice from the other side.
Not the second man's voice, Luther's Octavia. A pause. I know you're in there. Nothing from inside the room. I'm not going to hurt you, Luther said.
I need you to understand that. This was never about hurting you. Cade watched the door. I need the documents, Luther said. The ones in the estate management files, the transfer authorizations.
Another pause. Give me those. And we leave. Both of us. You never see us again.
Octavia's voice came from the dark beside him, steady, colder than the room. You were in my home, Luther. You cut the generator line in a blizzard and left me without heat. A pause on the other side of the door, longer than before. That was a mistake, Luther said.
The storm timing. Don't. Her voice didn't rise. It dropped. Don't tell me it was a mistake.
You planned every part of this. The storm gave you cover. You wanted me to evacuate down the mountain so you could access the estate without me here. She stopped for a moment. What I want to know is how long.
Silence. How long have you been working against me, Luther? It wasn't a question. It was a sentence that ended with a period. the way certain truths do when they've been held too long and have finally run out of room.
The voice from the other side of the door was quieter when it came. 14 months. Cade heard Octavia exhale beside him. One breath trolled. 14 months, she said.
They came to me. I didn't go looking. Get away from the door, she said. If you put your shoulder to it, I'm going to make certain the account of what you've done here is as complete and public as I can make it. a long silence.
Then the footsteps moved away from the door. They went down the corridor slower than they'd come. Cade listened until they faded, then listened another 30 seconds to make sure. " He's not gone," he said quietly. " He's repositioning." "
I know." Octavia clicked the headlamp on. Her face in the beam was tight, controlled, the same composure she'd been wearing since the night before, but there was something underneath it now, something that had cracked open slightly when Luther said 14 months. She wasn't letting it show fully. He didn't think she was capable of that in front of someone.