Chapter 14: The Records Room

Hollis's POV

I drove the co-op pickup up the hill with the headlights off.

I did not need them.

The sky was lit from end to end, violet and slow, and every few seconds a white vein ran along the bottom of the clouds.

The Emergency Management Center sat dark except for one row of windows on the second floor.

That was the dispatch floor, running on the last generator.

I left the truck behind the loading dock and took bolt cutters from the toolbox.

I had not slept, and my ribs hurt where the burn ran.

It had been quiet all evening.

Then, as I stood by the truck, Greta had pulled current into her hands in her sleep, and my whole side had lit up.

I had stood in the dark and counted until it stopped.

I wanted to go back.

I wanted to wake her and say it all.

But I knew what Lorraine had on the fourth, and I knew what one key ring could do.

The dock door was chained.

I cut the chain and went in.

The back hall smelled of burnt wiring.

The lobby lights Greta had shattered were still scattered on the floor in the dark, and I stepped around them.

Two deputies sat at the front desk under a camp lantern, playing cards.

They did not look up.

I took the back stairs to the administration hall.

Lorraine's office was the last door on the left.

It was locked, and I took the lock apart with the cutters.

Her desk was tidy.

A cardigan hung on the chair.

A framed photograph of her at a podium stood beside a jar of peppermints, and I stood there a moment, hating the peppermints.

The bottom drawer had a steel lock.

I cut that too.

Inside lay a ring of brass keys, each tagged in neat handwriting with a number from one to seven.

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