Page 62 of Jonah’s Lure

“Nobody moves alone,” Miguel said. “Rawlings, stay at the door, and radio fire rescue. Live victim below grade. Deputy Marx, secure the exterior. Frank.” He looked back. “Behind me. You don’t move until I say.”

Frank’s face was pale and still. He nodded.

“Angus.” Miguel’s eyes found his. “With me. You advise.”

Angus fell in behind Miguel and followed him into the building.

The floor was damp along the seams between the old boards, with water pushing up from below. Not flooding yet but present. The building drew the tide in through whatever remained of its original seals. The smell was stronger now. Salt. Diesel. Rot. The mix of a working waterfront building that had stopped working and was left to remember what it had been.

They moved toward the back. Miguel kept his light low, reading the floor. The scuff marks became clearer near the rear wall. Drag marks, two parallel lines in the dust, and beside them the smaller impressions of a person moving under their own limited power.

Frank stopped at the far wall and pointed to a narrow stairwell cut into the floor at the north end of the annex. Iron railing. Five or six steps descending into the dark.

“Lower service landing,” he said. “The chamber access is at the bottom.”

Miguel took the stairs first. Rawlings’s voice crackled over the radio—fire rescue two minutes out, EMS ninety seconds behind.

The landing was narrow. A single overhead pipe ran along the ceiling. At the far end of the landing, a heavy steel door sat in its frame.

Water moved beneath it. Not gushing—pressing. A dark line ran along the bottom of the door, wet and spreading, finding the lowest point and working steadily outward.

Miguel stepped closer and called through it.

“Jonah.”

Silence.

Then—faint, from somewhere beyond and below—a single metal strike.

Frank made a sound.

“Jonah!” He was past Miguel before anyone could stop him, both hands on the door, trying to force it inward.

The door didn’t move.

“Frank.” Miguel caught his arm. “Stop.”

Frank shoved again. The door held.

“It opens inward,” Frank said. His voice had gone flat in the way voices do when a man is keeping himself from something by sheer force of will. “If there’s water behind it⁠—”

“We can’t push against the pressure,” Miguel said.

Frank’s face went ashen.

“He told me the door mechanism was original. That if the sluice works failed and the chamber flooded, there was no safe manual egress from inside.” His jaw tightened. “He told me.”

Angus looked at him. “Tell us what else he told you. Right now.”

Frank blinked. Something shifted behind his eyes—the realignment of a man standing in his own guilt, reminded that there was still something useful he could do with it.

“There’s a manual release,” Frank said. “An old iron wheel on the north wall. It opens a relief gate into the exterior drainage channel. If we can reduce the pressure inside the chamber, the door might shift enough to force.”

“Where exactly?” Miguel said.

“North side of the annex. There’s a hatch set low in the siding. It opens into the old service crawl behind the chamber.” Frank turned. “I’ll have to show⁠—”

The light changed.