Chapter 4 - The Hollow Weights
The houseboat pitched violently as it hit the open water.
Emily clung to my arm, terrified, as the dead body of the private investigator slid across the blood-slicked floorboards.
Daniel aimed his gun at the ceiling speaker.
“Laura!” he roared over the sound of the storm and the churning engine. “Turn this boat around! I have Claire and her daughter! I'll kill them both!”
The speaker crackled with static, then Laura’s voice returned, eerily calm.
“Claire’s mother gave her life to protect me, Daniel. I won't let you hurt her daughter. But you’re not in control anymore. You’re trapped.”
Daniel fired a bullet into the speaker, shattering the plastic casing. Sparks rained down, but the boat kept moving, accelerating into the blackness of the Sound.
He turned his weapon on Sterling, his own lawyer.
“Break the door down!” Daniel screamed.
Sterling, pale and sweating, grabbed a heavy brass fire extinguisher from the wall and began battering the reinforced door.
I pulled Emily toward the back of the cabin, trying to keep as much distance between us and the madman with the gun as possible.
Eleanor stood beside the open grandfather clock, staring into its hollow casing.
“Claire,” Eleanor whispered, gesturing for me to come closer.
I kept one eye on Daniel, who was screaming at Sterling to hit the door harder, and crept toward the old woman.
“Look at the weights,” Eleanor said softly.
I looked inside the clock. The three heavy brass weights that controlled the pendulum were hanging from their chains. But one of them was hanging crookedly. The bottom cap had been unscrewed.
“They’re hollow,” I realized.
“That’s where Laura hid the bearer bonds,” Eleanor explained. “Fifty million dollars in untraceable bonds. It was the real Nathan’s emergency fund. Daniel has been looking for them for two decades.”
“If Laura took them, why did she leave the clock here?” I asked.
“Because Laura didn't take them,” a new voice said.
I spun around.
Sterling had stopped hitting the door. He dropped the fire extinguisher.
He reached into his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a thick stack of tightly rubber-banded paper. Bearer bonds.
Daniel froze, lowering his gun slightly.
“Sterling,” Daniel breathed. “You have them.”
“I’ve had them since this afternoon,” the lawyer said, a smug, greedy smile spreading across his face. “I found the slip number when I was filing the paperwork to incapacitate Claire. I came here before the storm hit. I found the clock. I found the dead P.I. And I found the money.”
Daniel raised his gun, pointing it squarely at Sterling’s chest.
“Hand them over, Arthur. Or I’ll put a bullet in your heart.”
Sterling laughed. “You need me, Daniel. Who do you think is driving the boat?”
Daniel’s eyes widened.
“Laura isn't driving,” Sterling sneered. “Laura is dead. I recorded her voice from an old answering machine tape I found in her files years ago. I wired this boat to run on autopilot. We’re heading straight for the rocks at Lighthouse Point.”
My stomach dropped. The voice on the speaker wasn't a rescue. It was a recorded trap set by a greedy lawyer.
“You set me up,” Daniel snarled.
“You’re a liability, Daniel,” Sterling said. “The forged marriage agreement, the kidnapping—it’s too messy. When this boat crashes, you, your new wife, the daughter, and the old maid will all drown. I’ll jump ship a mile before impact with fifty million dollars. The police will think it was a tragic boating accident.”
Sterling reached for a life vest hanging on the wall.
Daniel fired.
The gunshot was deafening in the small cabin.
Sterling gasped, dropping the bonds as blood bloomed across his shoulder. He stumbled backward, clutching his wound.
Daniel walked forward, a terrifying calmness washing over him. He wasn't the charming billionaire anymore. He was the brutal murderer who had stolen a life twenty years ago.
He kicked Sterling to the floor and knelt down, scooping up the bearer bonds.
“You were always a terrible chess player, Arthur,” Daniel whispered.
He raised the gun to Sterling’s head to finish the job.
Without thinking, I grabbed the heavy brass fire extinguisher from the floor and swung it with everything I had.
The heavy metal cylinder slammed into the back of Daniel’s head.
He grunted, dropping the gun and the bonds, and collapsed onto the floorboards.
Emily let out a terrified sob.
“Mom! Look!”
I looked out the salt-streaked window of the cabin.
Through the driving rain and the darkness, a massive, jagged shadow was looming directly in our path.
Lighthouse Point.
We were less than two minutes from impact.
I dropped the extinguisher and grabbed the rusted iron key Eleanor had given me earlier.
“Eleanor, what does this key open?” I screamed over the roar of the engine.
May you like
Eleanor pointed to a trapdoor bolted to the floor beneath the grandfather clock.
“The emergency raft,” she shouted. “Open it!”
