Chapter 7
Detective Ramos radioed for help.
Only static answered.
“The basement walls are blocking the signal,” she said.
Dad tried the stairway door.
It had been chained from the other side.
Smoke thickened above us.
Mom pulled her shirt over my nose.
“There has to be another exit.”
Dad pointed toward the far wall.
“Grandpa installed a delivery tunnel years ago.”
We ran between the lockers.
Owen found a steel panel near the floor.
It wouldn’t open.
“There’s a release lever in the old furnace room,” Dad said.
Detective Ramos stayed near the stairs.
“If that door opens, I need to know who’s coming through it.”
Mom gripped Dad’s arm.
“You cannot leave us.”
“I’ll be twenty feet away.”
He disappeared into the smoke with Owen.
I held the digital recorder beneath my jacket.
Grandpa’s voice was on it.
Proof that could clear Dad.
Proof that could free Aunt Rebecca and Tyler.
A heavy crash struck the stairway door.
Someone was trying to enter.
Detective Ramos aimed upward.
“Police!”
The door burst open.
Tyler stumbled down the stairs.
His hands were tied in front of him.
Smoke followed him.
“Help!”
Detective Ramos pulled him behind the wall.
“Who did this?”
“My dad.”
I stared at him.
Tyler began coughing.
“He found me calling Mom. He said I had chosen her side.”
“Where is Rebecca?” Mom asked.
“At the bank.”
“Why?”
“He made her go there with Owen’s mom. He said if this failed, she had to empty a box and burn everything.”
Mom untied Tyler’s hands.
“Did Victor start the fire?”
Tyler nodded.
“He said no Carter would walk out with the recorder.”
Dad and Owen returned.
“The release is jammed.”
Dad saw Tyler and froze.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Even after everything Tyler had done to me, Dad checked him first.
Tyler looked ashamed.
“The fire is spreading upstairs.”
A burning piece of wood fell near the stairwell.
Detective Ramos grabbed the extinguisher and sprayed it.
“We have minutes, not longer.”
I looked at the tiger patch.
Grandpa had hidden one key inside it.
Maybe there was more.
“Dad, what was locker 204?”
He looked confused.
“The number on Grandpa’s patch.”
“That locker was his private emergency cabinet.”
We found locker 204.
Dad inserted Grandpa’s hidden key.
Inside was an old metal crank.
“The tunnel release,” he said.
Owen carried it to the furnace room.
Seconds later, gears groaned behind the wall.
The delivery panel lifted just high enough for us to crawl underneath.
Detective Ramos went first.
Mom pushed me through, then Tyler.
Smoke burned my eyes as we crawled along the narrow tunnel.
Dad and Owen followed.
The exit opened into an alley behind the academy.
Firefighters were arriving.
Dad dropped to the pavement, coughing.
Mom handed the recorder to Detective Ramos.
“Please don’t let anyone take this.”
The detective sealed it inside an evidence bag.
Victor’s SUV was gone.
Tyler sat against the wall.
He looked smaller than he had at school.
“Why did your dad tie you up?” I asked.
“He saw a message I sent Mom.”
“What did it say?”
“I told her to run.”
Mom contacted the officers at the bank.
They had already found Aunt Rebecca and Owen’s mother inside a private room.
Both were safe.
Victor had forced Rebecca to collect documents from a safe-deposit box, but she had delayed until police arrived.
Dad sat beside Tyler.
“Your mother is safe.”
Tyler nodded without looking at him.
“I’m sorry.”
Dad waited.
Tyler looked at me.
“I’m sorry I grabbed you.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
An apology didn’t erase what he had done.
But Dad had taught me that admitting the truth was the first step toward changing.
“Are you sorry because your father turned on you?”
Tyler’s eyes filled with tears.
“At first, maybe.”
It was an honest answer.
“And now?”
“Now I know what it feels like when someone bigger decides you don’t matter.”
Emma had been frightened when Tyler threw away her food.
Noah had been frightened when Tyler pushed him.
I had controlled his arm, but he had tried to make me afraid too.
“You made other kids feel that way,” I said.
“I know.”
“You don’t get forgiven because you said two words.”
“I know that too.”
Dad stood.
“You can start by telling the police everything.”
Tyler wiped his face.
So he did.
He told Detective Ramos about Victor’s calls to Principal Halpern.
He described how Greg Dawson disabled the camera.
He admitted Victor had instructed him to accuse me of attacking first.
Then he revealed something none of us expected.
“Dad has a second phone.”
Detective Ramos took notes.
“Where?”
“In his office safe. He records people when he threatens them.”
Dad exchanged a glance with Owen.
“Would it contain the conversation about Owen’s attack?”
“Maybe. Dad keeps everything.”
The academy roof collapsed behind us.
Tyler flinched.
“That office is gone,” Mom said.
“No,” Tyler replied. “Not the office here.”
“Where is it?”
“At our house.”
Aunt Rebecca arrived in a police vehicle.
She ran directly to Tyler and held him.
“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry.”
Victor had bruised her wrist.
Dad noticed.
He removed his jacket and placed it around her shoulders.
For the first time in eight years, Rebecca leaned against her brother.
But Detective Ramos’s phone rang before they could speak.
Her expression became serious.
“What do you mean he has her?”
Owen stepped forward.
“My mother?”
The detective shook her head.
She ended the call.
“Victor wasn’t at the bank. He used Rebecca to distract us.”
Mom gripped my shoulders.
“Where is he?”
Detective Ramos looked at Dad.
“He went to your home.”
My blood turned cold.
“No one is there.”
Dad’s face changed.
“Yes, there is.”
My grandmother had arrived from Indiana that evening to stay with us after hearing about the school fight.
Dad called her.
Victor answered.
“Hello, Daniel.”
Grandma cried in the background.
Dad’s voice became deadly calm.
“If you hurt my mother—”
“You’ll do what? Take another building from me?”
“That academy was never yours.”
“It is ash now. The evidence inside it is ash too.”
“The recorder survived.”
Silence.
For the first time, Victor hadn’t expected Dad’s answer.
“What do you want?” Dad asked.
“The recorder and your father’s letter.”
“Where?”
“The place this family began.”
Dad knew immediately.
“So do I,” Rebecca whispered.
Victor ended the call.
Detective Ramos demanded the location.
Dad looked toward the burning remains of Carter Academy.
“Our father’s old house near Lake Michigan.”
Rebecca clutched Tyler tighter.
“That house has been empty for years.”
Dad took my hand.
“Victor isn’t taking us there because it’s empty.”
May you like
“Why, then?”
“Because the original ownership papers for Carter Academy are hidden inside it.”
