Chapter 8 - THE ESCAPE CAR
The blast threw me backward into a stack of empty crates.
For one terrifying second, I heard nothing.
Only pressure.
White dust.
Noah’s scream without sound.
Then the world slammed back in.
Gunfire erupted across the carriage house. Marcus dragged William behind the Cadillac. Rosa fell near the workbench, blood on her sleeve. Denise crawled toward Noah with the medical bag clutched to her chest. Isabella fired Rosa’s revolver once, twice, three times through the smoke.
I had never seen anyone shoot before.
Not really.
Movies make it look clean.
It was not clean.
It was noise and splinters and men shouting names they didn’t have time to finish.
I found Noah under the edge of the car, curled into a ball.
“Claire!” he cried.
“I’m here!”
I grabbed him and pulled him against me as glass rained across the floor.
William saw us and crawled over, shielding Noah with his body.
Marcus fired toward the broken doors.
“Car! Now!”
William opened the Cadillac’s rear door and pushed Noah inside.
“Claire, with him!”
I climbed in after the boy. Denise dove into the front passenger seat. Rosa stumbled in beside her, clutching her bleeding arm.
Isabella yanked open the driver’s door.
Marcus shouted, “Absolutely not!”
She glared at him.
“Do you know the service road?”
He hesitated.
She slid behind the wheel.
“That’s what I thought.”
William climbed into the back beside Noah. Marcus jumped into the front, still firing through the shattered windshield frame before Isabella turned the key.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Peter Lang stepped through the smoke, gun in hand.
He aimed at William through the broken side window.
“No hard feelings, sir.”
The engine roared.
Isabella slammed the Cadillac into reverse.
The car shot backward, smashing through a side wall made of rotted boards and old glass. I wrapped myself around Noah as the vehicle dropped off a low stone ledge and hit frozen ground hard enough to crack my teeth together.
Isabella spun the wheel.
The mansion vanished behind trees.
Gunfire followed us.
Marcus shouted directions. Rosa shouted corrections. Denise shouted that Rosa was bleeding too much. Noah didn’t shout. He clung to William and stared at Isabella driving like the devil herself was chasing us.
Maybe she was.
The service road was barely a road. Mud, ice, branches, stone walls too close to the doors. The Cadillac fishtailed twice. Isabella handled it with terrifying calm.
“You’ve done this before,” William said.
She didn’t look back.
“Your wife taught me the route.”
The words hit him, but he held Noah tighter and said nothing.
Headlights appeared behind us.
Two SUVs.
Marcus looked through the shattered rear window.
“They’re gaining.”
Isabella pressed the gas harder.
The Cadillac bounced violently. Denise nearly hit the dashboard.
“Slow down!” she yelled.
“Would you prefer polite kidnapping?” Isabella snapped.
Noah whispered, “Sophie is scared.”
William looked down.
“What?”
“He knows,” Rosa said through gritted teeth.
Everyone looked at her.
Rosa’s face was pale from blood loss.
“The twins. Some twins feel each other. Eleanor believed it.”
Isabella swore.
Noah squeezed his eyes shut.
“She’s in a white bed. She’s cold.”
William looked destroyed.
“Is he remembering?”
Rosa shook her head.
“Maybe. Maybe something else.”
The first SUV rammed the back of the Cadillac.
The impact threw us forward. Noah’s forehead nearly struck the seat, but William caught him.
Isabella jerked the wheel and sent the Cadillac skidding onto a narrow bridge over a frozen creek.
The SUV followed.
Marcus lowered the window and fired three shots.
The SUV swerved but kept coming.
Isabella looked at him.
“Shoot the ice.”
“What?”
“The creek.”
Marcus understood.
He aimed through the broken rear window and fired at the ice near the bridge support. Once. Twice. Three times.
The SUV hit us again.
The bridge railing cracked.
Isabella waited one impossible second, then spun the wheel and slammed the brakes.
The Cadillac slid sideways.
The SUV tried to correct, clipped the broken railing, and plunged nose-first off the bridge.
Ice shattered below.
Noah screamed.
William covered his eyes.
The second SUV stopped behind us, trapped by the wrecked bridge.
Isabella didn’t wait.
She drove on.
For five minutes no one spoke.
Then Marcus said, “We can’t go to a hospital. Whitcomb will watch them.”
Denise turned, furious.
“He needs one.”
“I know.”
“Rosa needs surgery.”
“I know.”
William looked at Isabella.
“You said Pennsylvania.”
She nodded.
“Four hours if roads are clear.”
“They won’t be.”
“No.”
He looked down at Noah.
His son was half-asleep now, exhaustion overpowering fear.
William brushed hair from his forehead with a shaking hand.
“I missed eight months.”
I didn’t know if he was speaking to us, to himself, or to Eleanor’s ghost.
Noah opened his eyes.
“Daddy?”
William froze.
“Yes?”
“Will Sophie know me?”
William’s face crumpled.
“Yes,” he whispered. “I promise.”
Isabella’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Rosa watched her.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Isabella’s jaw worked.
“Whitcomb won’t keep the girl at the residence after tonight.”
William’s head snapped up.
“Then why are we going there?”
“Because Eleanor’s red ledger is there.”
“The evidence?”
Isabella nodded.
“And Sophie?”
No one answered.
William’s voice became dangerous.
“Where will they take my daughter?”
Isabella stared at the road.
“There is a private airfield north of Scranton. If Whitcomb feels exposed, he moves assets offshore.”
“Assets,” William repeated.
His daughter was an asset.
His son had been leverage.
His dead wife had been evidence.
His marriage had been a battlefield he hadn’t known he was standing in.
Marcus checked his phone.
“No signal.”
Isabella turned onto a hidden gravel lane.
“We stop at the church.”
“What church?” I asked.
“The one Eleanor trusted.”
A few minutes later, a small white chapel appeared between pine trees, its windows dark, its cross leaning slightly beneath old snow.
As we pulled behind it, the bell began ringing.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Rosa began to cry.
William looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
Rosa whispered, “It means Eleanor’s people know Noah is alive.”
The chapel doors opened.
A priest stepped out holding a shotgun.
Behind him stood a little girl in a white nightgown.
She had dark hair.
May you like
Gray eyes.
And a crescent birthmark behind her right ear.
