Chapter 6 - The Church With Locked DoorsWe reached the church at 2:13 in the morning.
I know because the clock in Adrian’s SUV glowed blue from the dashboard, and for some reason my mind held onto that number like it mattered.
2:13.
The hour when decent people slept.
The hour when guilty people moved.
The white church sat at the end of County Road 8, surrounded by bare trees and old graves. A wooden sign near the drive read WELCOME HOME in peeling blue letters.
I had been baptized there.
So had half of Bellmore.
Sheriff Mercer shook hands on those steps every Sunday.
His wife played piano inside.
His mother’s name was stitched into the altar cloth.
And somewhere beneath all that holiness, Emily Rusk had left a secret.
Adrian parked behind the cemetery wall.
Silas and two men spread out without a word.
Mara had stayed at the farmhouse, angry but practical. Someone needed to coordinate if everything went wrong.
I wished she had come.
I wished anyone softer than Adrian Voss had been beside me when we walked toward that church.
“You know where she prayed?” he asked.
“When I was a kid, girls went downstairs during summer Bible camp. There was a room with old hymnals and folding chairs. We called it the blue room.”
“Why?”
“The walls were yellow.”
Adrian glanced at me.
“I didn’t name it.”
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth.
Then it vanished.
The side door was locked.
Adrian opened it anyway.
Inside, the church smelled like lemon cleaner, old wood, and winter coats. Moonlight fell through stained glass in broken colors across the pews.
For a moment, I remembered being eight years old with scuffed shoes and a paper cup of grape juice, believing every adult in the room knew better than I did.
That was the lie childhood gave you.
That grown-ups were good because they were grown.
We found the stairs behind the fellowship hall.
The blue room had not changed much.
Yellow walls.
Metal chairs.
A cabinet full of craft supplies.
A framed picture of Jesus holding a lamb.
Adrian stood in the doorway while I searched.
I checked the cabinet.
Nothing.
Old hymnals.
Nothing.
A drawer full of crayons, dried glue sticks, and construction paper angels.
Nothing.
Then I saw the vent near the floor.
One screw was newer than the others.
“Here,” I whispered.
Adrian knelt and removed the grate with a pocket tool.
Inside was a plastic bag wrapped in duct tape.
My hands shook as he opened it.
A Bible.
Emily Rusk’s name was written inside the cover in purple ink with a little heart over the i.
Behind the last page, a hollow had been cut neatly into the binding.
Inside was a silver lighter.
Adrian exhaled once.
Not relief.
Something heavier.
Silas appeared at the door. “We have company.”
Adrian slipped the lighter into his coat.
“How many?”
“Three vehicles. Sheriff’s department.”
My blood turned to ice.
Adrian looked at me. “Can you run?”
“No.”
“Can you trust me?”
That was harder.
Boots sounded overhead.
Voices.
Flashlights.
Deputy Briggs laughed somewhere near the sanctuary.
“Come on out, Lena. Sheriff just wants to talk.”
Adrian took my hand.
Not my wrist.
Not my arm.
My hand.
We moved through a narrow hall behind the blue room into a storage area piled with Christmas decorations. Silas opened a cellar hatch hidden under an old rug.
“Tunnel still open?” Adrian asked.
“Should be.”
I stared at him. “The church has a tunnel?”
“Bellmore has always needed ways for people to disappear.”
That was not comforting.
The tunnel smelled like dirt and rain. Adrian went first, then helped me down the ladder one painful step at a time. Above us, the door to the basement slammed open.
Briggs shouted, “They’re here!”
A gunshot cracked through the basement.
Wood splintered near the hatch.
I bit back a scream.
Adrian’s arm wrapped around me, pulling me forward through the dark.
The tunnel was barely tall enough to stand in. My ribs burned. My lungs fought me. Every step felt like punishment.
Behind us, Silas fired once.
Someone cursed.
Adrian kept moving.
“Almost there,” he said.
I wanted to believe him.
The tunnel opened behind the old cemetery shed.
Rain had started again.
Of course it had.
Adrian pushed me behind a stone wall as Silas emerged after us, bleeding from a cut over his brow.
“Briggs is calling Mercer,” Silas said.
Adrian pulled out the silver lighter.
It looked ordinary in his palm.
Small.
Worth killing for.
“Can you access it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then why do you look worse?”
He stared at the lighter.
“Because if Caleb put this where Emily prayed, he wasn’t just giving us evidence.”
“What was he giving us?”
Adrian looked toward the church, where flashlights sliced through stained glass.
“A confession.”
Before I could ask more, headlights flooded the cemetery.
A black sheriff’s SUV rolled to a stop at the gate.
Sheriff Mercer stepped out under an umbrella.
He looked across the graves and smiled at us.
Like a man greeting old friends.
“Adrian,” he called.
Then his eyes found mine.
“Lena.”
My name in his mouth felt like dirt.
Mercer lifted one hand.
Behind him, deputies raised their guns.
Adrian moved in front of me.
Mercer smiled wider.
“You should have stayed a waitress.”
May you like
And for the first time that night, Adrian Voss smiled back.
“You should have stayed buried.”
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