Delilah Haze's Arc

Chapter 5 of 6

Delilah still carried six copies under her apron. She had no place to hide them. Every desk, every drawer, every bag could be searched. If the men caught her now, two years of work vanished with one grab. She needed a hand she could trust, and a lock she did not own. She thought of Ros, gone off to warn the library on foot. Then she thought of the diner where this began, and drove there before dawn. Dex was wiping the same stretch of counter when she walked in. He looked up, folded a napkin flat, and set it down. "You found me," he said. His voice stayed low. "They came back. Twice." "I know. I have the pages." Delilah pressed a hand to her apron. "All of them. But I can't hold them. I need somewhere they won't look." Dex glanced at the door, then at the back booth. A stout old woman sat there with a wooden cane across her knees. Steel-grey hair, a judge's stillness. She had not ordered. She had watched Delilah the whole way in. "She's here every night," Dex whispered. "Since the men. She listens." Delilah crossed to the booth. The woman spoke first. "You worked the copy shop." Not a question. "I ran that machine myself, years back. I know the look of someone printing what they shouldn't." "Then you know what I'm holding," Delilah said. "I know it weighs more than paper." Linda Dox tapped the cane once on the floor. "Sit." Delilah sat and slid three copies across the table, low, below the sill. "Money moved and hidden. A name you'd recognize from the ads. I can't carry all six. If one of us is caught, both can't fall." Linda read the top page without touching the others. Her jaw tightened. "I sat on a secret once. Three wills, one man, three children cut out. I said nothing." She folded the page and pushed it into her coat. "Not this time. I have a courthouse. Retired now. The vault still locks. No one asks what an old judge keeps there." "You'd hold three," Delilah said. "I keep three. Split, so they can't win it all in one room." "Agreed." Linda stood, cane taking her weight. Headlights swept the front glass. A patrol cruiser rolled past slow, its light bar dark, then turned the corner and idled. Dex went still at the counter. Delilah slid the three copies deeper into the judge's coat. Linda did not hurry. She walked out the side door with three copies against her ribs, into the dark, toward her courthouse. The cruiser did not follow her. Delilah breathed. Half the evidence now sat behind a lock the men could not guess. But the cruiser had circled twice. Someone had told them where to look. And she still carried three copies, with the police now watching the only road out.