Delilah Haze's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

The cruiser turned the corner and idled. Delilah still had three copies under her apron. Ros had gone to warn the library on foot, but the men now had its address. Delilah did the math. Ros walked. A car did not. She had to reach the library first, before a raid landed on Petra and Dex. She slipped out the diner's side door while the cruiser watched the front. She drove without lights until she cleared the block. The old courthouse rose ahead, its stone face pale in the dark. She thought of leaving the last three copies with the judge too. No. Split meant split. She kept driving toward the library. The library sat quiet, one window lit low. Delilah knocked twice, then once. The door opened a crack. Petra stood in her cardigan, gloved hands still holding a book she'd been shelving. She did not smile. "You," Petra said. "You led them to Dex. Now you come to my door." "They have this address." Delilah kept her voice flat. "A raid could come any minute. Ros is still walking here. I drove." Petra's jaw set. She looked past Delilah at the empty lot, then stepped back. "Come in. Fast." Inside, sixteen books held Petra's records, spread across the shelves. Petra did not touch them. She moved to the basement stairs and called down. Dex came up, apron gone, eyes wide. He saw Delilah and let out a breath. "They know where we are," Delilah told him. "We move the evidence now, or we lose it." Petra pulled one book, then another, working down her list from memory. Loose pages slid out from the spines. She stacked them on the counter with her gloved hands, quick and precise. "Sixteen books. Fourteen minutes," she said. "If they come before I finish, it's your fault." Delilah added her three copies to the stack. Together they emptied the shelves. Dex bagged the pages in a canvas sack. Headlights washed the front window. Everyone froze. A cruiser rolled past, slow, then kept going. Not stopping. Not yet. "Basement," Petra said. "Back way out. There's a tunnel." They carried the sack down. The tunnel mouth stank of old water. A lean doberman stood in the dark ahead, ribs sharp, teeth bared. Dex stopped cold. Petra pulled bread from her cardigan pocket and threw it past the dog. It lunged for the food. They ran the other way, through the wet, up a rusted ladder, into a back alley the cruiser could not see. Delilah breathed hard, the sack against her chest. Petra locked the hatch behind them. "It's out," Petra said. "All of it. Together now." Her voice had lost its edge. "One bag. One grab takes everything." Delilah stared at the sack. She had split the evidence to stay safe. Now every page she carried, and every page Petra had hidden for years, sat in one place. If the men found them, they lost it all at once.