Chapter 7 - The Broken Window
Panic clawed at my throat. I slammed my fists against the heavy oak doors until my knuckles bruised, but it was useless. Eleanor’s bedroom was built like a fortress.
Through the thick walls, I could hear the muffled wail of sirens cutting out as multiple police cruisers parked in the driveway below. The heavy thud of the front doors opening echoed through the mansion. They were here. CPS and the police had arrived to take Noah.
"Alexander!" I screamed, pressing my face against the wood, praying he could hear me. But the mansion was too vast, the walls too thick.
I spun around, staring into the dim emergency light of the bedroom. The steel security shutters completely blocked the massive windows. I was buried alive with the evidence. I pulled the manila folder from my apron, staring at the dry-cleaning receipt and the bank transfers. Without these papers, Alexander had no defense. Eleanor would hand Noah over to the state, and I would be arrested for grand larceny.
I refused to let her win. I refused to let that little boy go back into the dark.
I scanned the room wildly. Antique furniture, a massive four-poster bed, a marble fireplace.
The fireplace.
I ran over to the hearth. Beside it sat a heavy, wrought-iron poker. I grabbed it, the metal cold and impossibly heavy in my hands. I rushed to the nearest window. The steel shutter was rolled down tightly on the outside of the glass, but I noticed a small gap at the bottom where the mechanism hadn't locked completely flush against the sill.
It was a desperate, foolish idea. If it didn't work, I would be trapped. If it did work, it would trigger every silent alarm in the house.
I raised the heavy iron poker like a baseball bat, aimed for the center of the reinforced glass window, and swung with every ounce of adrenaline in my body.
CRASH.
The thick glass shattered outward, showering the gap between the window frame and the steel shutter. Instantly, a piercing, high-pitched security alarm began shrieking through the entire estate. Red strobe lights flashed from the ceiling corners.
I didn't stop. I jammed the iron poker into the narrow gap beneath the steel shutter. Using the window sill for leverage, I threw my entire body weight backward, pulling down on the poker.
Metal groaned. The heavy steel shutter resisted, but the emergency locking mechanism was old. With a violent, grinding snap, the shutter bent upward just enough to create a gap about eighteen inches high.
Cold rain and wind whipped into the bedroom.
I shoved the folder containing the evidence securely down the front of my dress. I squeezed myself through the jagged, broken glass of the window, ignoring the sharp sting as shards sliced through my uniform sleeves, and slid under the bent steel shutter.
I tumbled out onto the second-story stone balcony, gasping for breath in the freezing rain.
Below me, the driveway was chaos. Four police cruisers were parked haphazardly, their lightbars flashing violently in the storm. Standing on the front steps, beneath the massive portico, was Alexander. He was holding Noah tightly in his arms, entirely surrounded by six police officers and a stern-looking woman holding a clipboard—the CPS worker.
Eleanor stood safely behind the wall of police, her arms crossed, looking victorious.
"Mr. Sterling, you must hand the child over peacefully," one of the officers was shouting over the blaring security alarms. "We have a judge's order!"
"You will have to shoot me," Alexander roared over the rain, his body shielding his son. "He is not going anywhere with that woman!"
"Officers, please," Eleanor cried out, faking a perfect tone of grandmotherly distress. "My son is unwell! The maid he is obsessed with just triggered the safe alarm in my bedroom! She's robbing us while he holds my grandson hostage!"
"I'M RIGHT HERE!"
I screamed as loud as my lungs would allow, leaning over the stone balcony.
Every head on the front steps snapped upward.
I didn't wait for them to process it. I climbed over the wet stone balustrade, grabbed the thick, ancient ivy vines clinging to the mansion's facade, and half-climbed, half-slid down to the ground. My hands burned as the rough vines tore at my skin, and I landed hard in the muddy flowerbeds below.
Two officers immediately rushed over, drawing their weapons. "Stay where you are! Hands where we can see them!"
I ignored the guns. I scrambled to my feet, drenched in mud and rain, and sprinted through the cordon of officers straight toward Alexander.
"Emma!" Alexander shouted, stepping forward, using his broad shoulders to block the officers from tackling me.
I reached into my soaked dress, pulled out the dry manila folder, and shoved it directly into the hands of the lead police officer.
"I didn't rob anyone!" I yelled, chest heaving, pointing a shaking finger at Eleanor. "Read the papers! Read them right now!"
The officer frowned, taken aback by my fury. He opened the folder, shining his heavy tactical flashlight onto the documents.
Eleanor’s confident mask faltered for the first time. "Officers, arrest that woman! She stole my private property!"
"Shut up, Mother," Alexander said, his voice deadly calm. He looked at the officer reading the papers. "What is it?"
The officer’s eyes widened as he read the wire transfers. He flipped to the dry-cleaning receipt. "These are wire transfers for hundreds of thousands of dollars to a Madeline Royce. Dated three days before your wife's fatal car crash."
"And the receipt," I gasped, wiping rain from my eyes. "A crimson red cashmere coat. Heavily smelling of smoke and chemicals. Brought in the morning after Victoria’s car burned. Madeline Royce was in the car. Eleanor paid her to cause the crash."
The CPS worker lowered her clipboard, staring at Eleanor in horror.
Eleanor’s face went entirely pale. She looked at the documents, then at me, realizing the game was finally up.
"This is absurd," Eleanor scoffed, though her voice shook slightly. "Those documents are forged. A desperate maid trying to save her billionaire lover. You have no proof those transfers were for anything illegal, and a dry-cleaning receipt proves nothing. Madeline Royce is a respected socialite."
"She's right," the lead officer said slowly, looking apologetically at Alexander. "Mr. Sterling, this is incredibly suspicious, and it warrants a major homicide investigation. But right now, tonight, I still have a signed emergency order from a judge. I have to remove the boy from the premises until this is sorted out in court."
Alexander’s face fell. He pulled Noah tighter, a look of utter despair breaking through his stoic armor. We had the evidence, but it wasn't enough to stop the corrupt machinery Eleanor had set in motion.
"No," Noah whimpered, burying his face in Alexander’s neck. "Dad, don't let her take me."
"I can't," Alexander choked out, tears mixing with the rain on his face. He looked at me, completely broken. "Emma... they're taking him."
Eleanor smiled. A cold, victorious smirk.
"I told you," Eleanor whispered. "I always win."
"No, you don't."
The small, muffled voice didn't come from me. It didn't come from Alexander.
It came from Noah.
Noah wiggled out of Alexander’s grip just enough to look down at the officers. He was holding his stuffed rabbit, Bunny, tightly by the neck.
"Mommy didn't just tell me a secret about the music box," Noah said, his voice remarkably steady for a five-year-old standing in the rain.
Noah reached his small fingers into the seam along the back of the stuffed rabbit. He pulled hard. The old, worn threads snapped.
Noah reached deep into the stuffing.
May you like
He pulled out a tiny, black square. A micro-SD card.
"Mommy put a secret inside Bunny before we got in the car that night," Noah said, holding the tiny card out to the stunned police officer. "She said if she went to heaven, Bunny would show everybody who sent her there."
