The Inner Circle - Brad Meltzer [146]
“Get away from him, Beecher!” Tot yells in my ear.
Dallas stops right in front of me, the hospital file clutched at his side.
“Who’re you talking to?” Dallas asks, pointing to my phone and sliding his reading glasses back into his jacket pocket.
“He found the file? Do not let him have that!” Tot adds as another noise—this one louder, a metal thud—erupts from this side of the stacks. Whoever’s in here, they’re getting closer.
“That noise… you think that’s Clementine?” Dallas asks, sidestepping past me and racing into the main aisle, back toward the door. What Tot said first is still my best move. I can deal with Dallas later. Right now, though, I need to get out of here.
“Watch him, Beecher!” Tot says in my ear as we pick up speed.
With each row we pass, I glance down each one. Empty. Empty. Empty again.
The air feels frozen as we run. It doesn’t stop the even colder sweat that’s crawling up my back.
The red doors are just a few feet away.
We pass another empty row. And another.
“Do we need a code to get out!?” Dallas asks.
“She said it opens from—”
Kuh-kunk.
The metal door flies wide as Dallas rams it with his hip. It’s the same for the next door, the outer red door, which whips open, dumping us both back into the dusty air and poor lighting of the cave. We’re still moving, skidding, slowing down. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark.
That’s the reason we don’t see who’s standing there, waiting for us.
There’s a soft click. Like the hammer on a gun.
“Put the phone down, Beecher,” she says, and I drop it to the ground. To make sure Tot’s gone, she picks it up and hangs up the phone herself.
I was wrong. She wasn’t inside. She was out here the whole time.
“I’m sorry. I really am,” Clementine adds as she points her gun at Dallas’s face, then over to mine. “But I need to know what they did to my dad.”
104
You really think I believe a word you’re saying?” I ask, my eyes narrowing on Clementine’s gun.
“She’s a liar,” Dallas agrees. “Whatever she’s about to tell you, she’s a liar.”
“Don’t let Dallas confuse you,” Clementine says. “You know what’s true… you met Nico yourself. They ruined him, Beecher. They ruined my dad’s life.”
“You think that excuses everything you did? You killed Orlando! And then that lying… exploiting our friendship…!” I shout, hoping it’s loud enough for someone to hear.
There’s a small group of employees all the way down by the cave’s cafeteria. They don’t even turn. They’re too far.
She points with her gun, motioning us around the corner as we duck under the yellow police tape with the word Caution written across it. Back here, the lights are dimmer than those in the main cavity. From the piles of metal shelving on our right, and the rolls of cable wire piled up on our left, it looks like this section of the cave is mostly used for maintenance and storage. No one’s hearing us back here.
My brain whips back to our old schoolyard and when she tied that jump rope around Vincent Paglinni’s neck. Two days ago, when Clementine saw her father, I thought the girl who was always prepared was finally undone. But I was wrong. As always, she was prepared for everything.
“Beecher, before you judge,” she says. “I swear to you… I tried telling you the truth.”
“When was that? Before or after you hired someone to play your dead grandmother?”
“I didn’t hire anyone! Nan’s the woman I live with—the landlord’s mother-in-law. Instead of paying rent, I take care of her!”
“Then why’d you say she’s your grandmother?”
“I didn’t, Beecher! That’s what you said! And then—You cared so much about it, and I just wanted—You have no idea what’s at stake.”
“That’s your response!? You’re not even pregnant, are you? That was just to suck my sympathy and lead me along!”
“I didn’t tell her to blurt that! She saw me throwing up and that’s what she thought! The woman hates me!”
“You still let me believe some old woman was your dead grandmother! You understand how