Chapter 4 - THE STORM AND THE SECRET
“Give me my keys, Judith,” I demanded. I tried to sound commanding, but my voice wavered.
Judith slowly traced the beads of my mother’s rosary.
“It’s a dangerous night to be on the roads,” she said softly. “The rain is freezing over. You wouldn’t make it to the bottom of the mountain.”
“I’ll take my chances. Where is Owen?”
“He’s safe in his room. Reading,” she replied. “He’s such a smart boy. Too smart, perhaps.”
She took a step closer to me. The dim light caught the sharp angles of her face.
“You think my son is a monster, don’t you?” she whispered. “You think he wants to hurt you for the money.”
I froze. “I saw the paper in his office.”
Judith let out a dry, humorless laugh.
“Oh, Claire. You are so terribly blind. Nathan didn’t write that schedule to hurt you.”
She tossed my keys onto the counter. They landed with a heavy clatter.
“He wrote it to save you.”
My mind spun. Reversal. What was she talking about?
“What do you mean?” I demanded, grabbing the keys and clutching them to my chest.
“The tea wasn’t meant to kill you,” Judith said, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “It was a heavy sedative. We needed you unconscious by 9:00 PM. Because at 11:30 PM, the people you owe money to are coming through that window.”
I stared at her in utter disbelief. “I don’t owe anyone money!”
“Not you,” Nathan’s voice echoed as he walked into the kitchen, his face pale. “Your father.”
Nathan looked exhausted. The confident, menacing aura he had in the office was gone. He just looked broken.
“When your father died,” Nathan explained, his voice shaking, “he left Owen that massive trust. But he also left a mountain of underground gambling debts. Debts he hid from you. They’ve been threatening us for months. They want the trust fund, Claire.”
I stepped back, shaking my head. “No. No, my father was a good man. You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Nathan reached into his jacket and pulled out a crumpled photograph.
He threw it onto the counter.
It was a picture of my father, looking terrified, standing next to a man I didn’t recognize. But on my father’s wrist was a heavy, distinct silver bracelet.
The same bracelet that was currently sitting in my jewelry box at home.
“They told me if I didn’t have the transfer papers signed by midnight tonight,” Nathan choked out, “they would take Owen.”
I looked at the clock on the microwave.
It was 9:45 PM.
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Suddenly, a loud, heavy THUD echoed from the front porch.
Someone was at the door. And we were out of time.
