Delilah Haze's Arc

Chapter 4 of 6

Delilah slipped out the side door with all seven copies. She circled the block, kept to shadows, and lost the two men near a loading dock. Her hands still shook. The P.O. box had been a trap. If the men could bait her there, the library was next. Petra was hiding Dex in that basement. She had to warn them. But a call could be traced, and a visit would lead the men straight to the door. She had no safe way to send word. She walked, thinking, until she reached her own building. The studio was small, its walls stained and cracked. She locked the door and sat on the bed. She could not write a letter. She could not phone. Any thread she pulled, the men could follow. Then she remembered Eli's words at the counter. He logged things others missed. He moved mail without leaving a trail. She went back to the postal office before it closed. Eli stood at window six, headset clamped to his ear. He looked up before she spoke. "You came back," he said. Not a question. "I need to reach two people. No return address. No trace to me or to them." She leaned close. "The men who paid for my box. They'll go after a library next. I have to warn the people inside." Eli studied her. "You want a message carried by hand. Off the books." "Can you do that?" He was quiet a moment. "I don't carry mail. But I know who does." He wrote a number on a slip and slid it across. "A courier. She's parked outside most nights. Red hair. Diner uniform." Delilah found her at the curb, leaning against a car. Green eyes, red waves, high heels that did not fit the hour. She had worked Dex's section the night the suited men came. She had walked out at two in the morning and stayed gone. "Ros," Delilah said. Ros looked her over. "You know Dex." "He's safe. For now." Delilah held out a folded note. "This warns him and the librarian. The men are coming for the library. Can you get it there without being followed?" Ros took the note. She read the outside, then Delilah's face. "Why me?" "Because you already ran once. You know how to disappear." Ros was quiet. Then she tucked the note into the lining of her bag, beside something already sewn there. "I'll walk it in. No car. No phone." She pushed off the curb. "If I don't come back, it got there." She left on foot and did not look back. Two hours later, Eli's headset clicked. A call that never rang. A voice gave an address before he asked. It was the library's. He wrote it down and stared at the slip. The warning was on its way. So was someone else.