Chapter 12 - Run Through the Rain
The balcony sat twelve feet above the sloping roof of the sunroom. Below that was a trellis of thick, creeping wisteria that Eleanor had planted when Chloe was just a child. Chloe didn't stop to calculate the risk; behind her, the master bedroom door was already beginning to splinter under the relentless blows of a heavy brass fire iron Susan had grabbed from the hallway hearth.
Chloe hoisted herself over the stone balustrade, swung her legs out into the cold night air, and dropped onto the wet cedar shingles of the sunroom roof.
She landed hard on her hands and knees, the coarse shingles tearing through her jeans and scraping her palms. Pain shot up her wrists, but she bit her lip, refusing to cry out. She slid down the slope toward the edge, grabbed the thick wooden framework of the wisteria trellis, and scrambled down the wet vines like a ladder.
Her boots hit the saturated lawn with a wet thud.
Above her, the master bedroom door gave way with a loud crack of splintering timber. Susan stepped onto the dark balcony, the heavy brass fire iron resting in her hand, her dark hair plastered to her skull by the driving rain. She spotted Chloe on the lawn below and pointed the heavy iron rod down at her like a weapon.
""Chloe!"" Susan shrieked into the howling wind, her voice carried away by the storm. ""Don't you dare run!""
Chloe turned and sprinted across the open lawn toward the dark outline of the garden shed. The cold rain soaked through her sky-blue sweater within seconds, weighing her down, but she kept moving, her boots sinking deep into the mud. Flashbacks of her mother tending the rosebeds, laughing in the summer sun, spurred her forward through the freezing gale.
Behind her, she heard the heavy crash of the front door swinging open as Susan ran down through the foyer to intercept her.
Chloe reached the shed, throwing her weight against the wooden door. It was locked with a heavy brass padlock.
Chloe pulled the brass key from her pocket—the one shaped like a house key from Eleanor's metal box. Her hands were shaking so violently from the cold and adrenaline that she dropped it once into the muddy grass. ""Come on, come on,"" she sobbed, dropping to her knees, clawing through the mud until her fingers found the metal again.
She jammed the key into the padlock. It turned smoothly. The shackle popped open.
Chloe yanked the door wide, slipped inside, and slammed it shut, sliding the internal wooden crossbar into place just as a heavy body slammed against the exterior with violent force.
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""Open this door!"" Susan screamed from the other side, hammering the brass poker against the cedar siding. ""You have nowhere left to run, you little bitch! Open it!""
Chloe backed away into the pitch-black interior of the shed, her chest heaving, the smell of fertilizer, damp earth, and dried lavender surrounding her. She reached out blindly in the dark until her hands brushed against the rough canvas of an easel sitting in the corner under a plastic tarp.
