BooksBarbecue
Back Illuminated
Chapters (34)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Prologue
  7. One
  8. Two
  9. Three
  10. Four
  11. Five
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-one
  28. Twenty-two
  29. Twenty-three
  30. Twenty-four
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Epilogue
  33. Further Mysteries
  34. Acknowledgments

April put her hand on the digital panel next to the door. It flashed red. “I don’t have access to this room,” she said.

“You’ve got access to the magical bookcase but not this?”

“Unlocking that access panel made this one impossible for me to open. Someone else with the proper clearance will have to open it. It’s a check-and-balance system to make sure no one comes down here alone.”

“Why does that matter?”

“It’s so no one steals anything.”

“Like the guys in the other vault?”

“Exactly. Only they couldn’t have known they picked the wrong vault. Last week I personally moved the Gutenberg to this vault to compare it with some other illuminated books from the fifteenth century. But no one outside of our department would have known about the move.”

Norman put his hand on the digital panel and watched it blink red. “Who else has access to this vault?”

“Just a few other people from my department.”

“Was Dr. Winter one of them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Then I think he can help,” Norman said, dashing back up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” April asked.

“To get a helping hand!”

Nine

nine

Xandria had given Joe two primary objectives: number one, keep the hostages alive, and number two, if drastic action became necessary, kill them. Joe had expected objective number two to be the difficult one. Objective number one should have been a given. Do nothing, and the kid stays alive.

Wrong. And it was worse than that.

To his left, Grandma was bleeding to death, and to his right, the kid was laid out on the floor, pale white. Dead white.

In a moment of clarity, Joe realized he could not tell Xandria about the boy. She needed him alive. Besides, if Xandria’s next call was to kill them both, then his job would already be done. Why save them only to have to kill them again?

But Xandria might also call and say, “Let them go. We got what we needed.” Or, even worse, “Put the kid on the line to talk with his dad.” Their deaths could prove problematic. Why had he wanted to leave his desk job? Wasn’t it enough just to be a part of the Orphans? Too bad he couldn’t talk about it in his blog. It was certainly cooler than his stories about watching every season of 24 front to back for a third straight time.

“You’ve got to help Charlie,” Grandma said, panting. “His inhaler is in the kitchen by the coffeemaker.”