Chapter 3 - Shadows in the Rearview
Dawn broke through a veil of dreary grey over the coastal highway. Sarah loaded two battered duffel bags into the trunk of her aging station wagon. The Vance family mansion, a grand neoclassical estate of limestone and wrought iron, sat brooding on the cliffside behind them.
"Are we never going back, Mommy?" Nora asked from the backseat, clutching a plush rabbit whose ear had been repaired with mismatched blue thread.
"No, bunny," Sarah said, buckling Nora tightly into her safety seat. "We're going to build a place that’s ours. Where nobody takes your breath away."
Nora touched the pouch around her neck containing her emergency inhaler, nodding solemnly. "Grandma said I was weak because I need the magic air."
Tears pricked Sarah's eyes, but she swallowed them whole. "You are the strongest girl in the world. Needing help to breathe isn't weakness. Taking away someone's breath is."
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Sarah put the car in drive. As they cleared the heavy iron gates, a sleek black town car remained parked across the cul-de-sac. The tinted rear window slid down two inches, revealing the razor-sharp jawline and silver locks of Eleanor Vance. Eleanor did not wave, nor did she scowl. She merely lifted a leather-bound planner, tapping it against the windowsill like a gavel counting down a sentence.
Sarah hit the accelerator, fixing her eyes on the road ahead. The highway opened up toward the low-rent coastal district of Harbor Pines, far from the polished lawns and suffocating perfection of Oakridge.
