第5章 第1節 ルームトーン
A rescue at dawn and a hidden recording
The had climbed almost to the ceiling before the began.
Someone was breaking the door of the drowning house apart.
Nora held her father's head above the cold water and prayed.
She had stopped believing that anyone would come for them.
Then the door gave way, and grey morning light poured in.
It was Sam, to the skin, dragging a small boat behind him.
He had rowed around the point while the storm was still breaking.
"Give me your hand," he shouted, and Nora obeyed without thinking.
Together they pulled the old man onto the wet planks of the boat.
Thomas was breathing, but his lips had turned a frightening grey.
Nora still gripped the tape she had found beneath the floorboards.
It was the second half of the master, the half her mother had hidden.
But she had no machine to play it, and the first half was gone.
"It's like this," she told Sam, her voice flat with .
Sam rowed hard and did not answer her at once.
Then he said that he had something she needed to hear.
On the night the station burned, he had stayed in the shadows.
He told her that he had recorded Edwin's men on his phone.
They had spoken openly, sure that no one was listening.
Their voices had named the fire, the station, and the order to burn it.
Nora stared at him, hardly able to breathe.
"You had this the whole time?" she asked, her anger rising.
Sam nodded and said quietly that he had been too afraid to share it.
"I'm not afraid anymore," he told her, and turned the boat toward shore.