Chapter 11 - Blood on the Timber
""Lower the weapon, Clara,"" Arthur said smoothly, not even looking at the barrel pointed at his chest. ""Put the gun down, or Julian puts a bullet through your cousin’s skull right now. And after that, Dr. Evans will finish the procedure we started in the manor.""
Clara’s hands shook violently, the heavy police pistol wavering between Arthur’s chest and Julian’s head. ""You... you paid Dr. Evans?""
""Who do you think funded Evans’s research wing?"" Arthur sneered. ""The Vance Foundation owns St. Jude's. The Vance Foundation owns the police. You thought you were playing chess, Clara, but you were merely moving pawns across my board.""
""Arthur, stop this,"" Eleanor pleaded, taking a step toward her husband, her eyes welling with rare, agonizing tears. ""We have enough blood on our hands. Let them go. Take the offshore accounts. Take the yacht. Disappear back into the ocean, but leave them alone.""
Arthur looked at Eleanor, and for a fleeting moment, a ghost of the man she had loved forty years ago flickered behind his cruel eyes. ""You were always too sentimental, Eleanor. That’s why I had to run the company from behind the curtain. Julian... end it.""
Julian’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Lucas Thorne looked up through swollen, bloody eyes, locking his gaze with Clara’s. ""Clara, run! Don't let them take—""
A gunshot shattered the night.
Blood splattered across the wet timber of the pier. But it wasn't Lucas who fell.
May you like
Julian let out a choked, wet gasp, dropping his gun as he clutched his shoulder, staggering backward against the yacht’s mooring post.
Fifty yards down the access road, Sheriff Cole’s police cruiser came roaring out of the fog, headlights blazing, horn blaring—driven by the bleeding, battered deputy who had escaped from Eleanor’s trunk.
