Chapter 10 · No Body, No File

The fire alarm goes off while I'm three floors deep in the city records basement.

Not ideal.

I shove the file box back on the shelf and grab my phone. No service down here, which is why I picked tonight in the first place. The alarm's probably automatic. Probably just a drill. Except the sprinklers kick on two seconds later and I know it's not.

Shit.

I'm not supposed to be here. The clerk upstairs thinks I left an hour ago, right after I sweet-talked her into letting me look up old property transfers for a quote-unquote research project. She's seventy and likes that I bring her tea. She does not know I wedged the basement door before I left.

The water's cold. It hits the back of my neck and I'm already soaked by the time I get back to the table where I left Mara's sister's name pulled up on the ancient desktop they keep down here for the digitization project that's been stalled since 2015.

The screen's black.

I slam the keyboard. Nothing. The whole grid must've cut when the alarm tripped. Which means I've got nothing. No photos, no downloads, no proof that Quinn, L.