CHAPTER 2
Mark’s broad hand clamped down over my white knuckles. His skin was warm and slightly damp with sweat. I could smell the familiar, expensive cedarwood cologne I had bought him for our anniversary last year.
It was the scent of my husband. It was the scent of safety. But the man leaning over that wooden banister was a complete stranger.
His thumb pressed brutally into the back of my hand. He wasn’t rushing. He was acting with a terrifying, methodical calmness.
He dug his thick fingernails under my pinky finger and pulled backward. The iron spindle was the only thing keeping me from smashing into the hard marble tile of the foyer fifteen feet below. Every ounce of my pregnant body weight was pulling down on that single, burning shoulder joint.
“Mark, stop,” I choked out, my voice barely a raspy whisper. “Please. The baby.”
He didn’t look at my face. He kept his eyes entirely focused on my hand. He peeled my pinky finger completely off the cold metal.
The pain in my shoulder spiked into a blinding, white-hot agony. The joint was beginning to dislocate. I could feel the tendons stretching far past their breaking point.
“Hurry up,” Diane hissed from the shadows of the hallway right behind him. “If she screams, the Miller’s next door will hear. Push her.”
Mark moved his grip to my ring finger. My golden wedding band dug sharply into my swelling skin as he wrenched the finger backward. The heavy diamond caught the dim light from the chandelier below.
Twelve years of marriage. Six agonizing rounds of IVF. Three miscarriages. Countless nights crying on his shoulder in the dark. All of it was being erased by a two-million-dollar life insurance policy.
He bent my ring finger back until I heard a sickening pop. Searing pain shot up my arm, completely eclipsing the agony in my shoulder.
I let out a desperate, guttural sob. I couldn’t hold on much longer. My middle and index fingers were slipping against the smooth, decorative iron. The sweat from my own palm was acting like a lubricant.
I looked down at the massive, terrifying drop beneath my fuzzy slippers. The black and white marble floor of the entryway looked like a chessboard. If I fell straight down, I would land squarely on my back. The impact would instantly shatter my spine.
I curled my heavy stomach tightly inward, a useless, desperate attempt to shield my unborn son. The baby was perfectly still now. It was as if he knew the horrific danger we were in.
Mark wedged his thumb under my middle finger. He was breathing heavily through his nose. I could see a bead of sweat tracing down his temple. Murder was turning out to be hard physical labor.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I prayed for a miracle. I prayed for the floor to open up and swallow me. I prayed for the heavy oak front door to suddenly swing open and reveal a delivery driver, a neighbor, a police officer, anyone.
Instead, I heard the rapid, frantic clicking of nails on the hardwood floor downstairs.
A deep, ferocious snarl echoed up the stairwell. It wasn’t the sound of a human. It was a guttural, terrifying noise that completely shattered the tense silence of the house.
I opened my eyes and saw a flash of golden fur tearing out of the living room.
It was Buster.
We had adopted Buster eight years ago from a high-kill shelter just outside of Austin. He was a massive, goofy Golden Retriever mix who loved chasing tennis balls and sleeping heavily on my feet while I watched television. Mark had never really wanted a dog. He complained about the shedding on his expensive suits.
But Buster was my shadow. Ever since I got pregnant, his protective instincts had doubled. He spent hours resting his large, heavy head gently on my swollen belly, listening closely to the baby’s heartbeat.
I had never heard him make a sound like this before. It was the raw, primal roar of an animal defending its pack.
Buster didn’t hesitate at the bottom of the long wooden staircase. He launched his eighty-pound body up the steps with terrifying speed. His lips were curled back, exposing long, sharp teeth. Thick saliva flew from his jaws.
“What the hell is that?” Diane shrieked from the top landing, stumbling backward away from the banister.
Mark jerked his head to the side, completely startled by the sudden, vicious noise. His grip on my hand loosened by a fraction of an inch.
Buster cleared the remaining stairs in two massive leaps. He didn’t go for Diane. He went straight for the man trying to pry my fingers off the railing.
The dog clamped his powerful jaws directly onto Mark’s right calf.
Mark screamed. It was a high, piercing sound of pure panic and agony. He completely let go of my hand and violently threw his weight backward against the hallway wall.
“Get him off me!” Mark yelled, wildly kicking his heavy leather dress shoe at Buster’s ribs. “Diane, grab something! Hit him!”
Buster didn’t let go. He planted his heavy paws firmly on the wooden landing and viciously shook his head from side to side. The sharp fabric of Mark’s expensive suit pants tore loudly.
The distraction gave me exactly one crucial second to save my child.
My shoulder was completely numb now. My hand was a mangled, agonizing claw. I couldn’t pull my heavy, pregnant body up to the landing. The physics were simply impossible.
But I didn’t need to pull myself up. I just needed to change my angle of descent.
I swung my legs hard to the right, using the heavy momentum of my stomach as a pendulum. The momentum pulled my body fiercely toward the side wall of the staircase.
My fingers finally slipped completely off the smooth iron spindle.
I dropped through the empty air. But instead of falling fifteen feet straight down to the hard marble, I only fell five feet.
I crashed brutally onto the small, carpeted middle landing where the staircase turned.
The impact knocked the breath completely out of my lungs. I hit the floor on my left side, desperately shielding my large belly from the hard oak boards beneath the thin carpet rug.
My hip took the brunt of the heavy fall. A sharp, stinging pain radiated down my leg. My head bounced forcefully against the drywall, sending a bright explosion of white stars across my vision.
I laid there for a second, gasping silently like a fish on a dock. I couldn’t draw oxygen into my lungs. The entire house spun wildly in circles.
From the top of the stairs, the chaotic sounds of a violent struggle raged on.
Mark was cursing loudly. I heard the sickening, heavy thud of a shoe hitting ribs. Buster let out a sharp yelp, but he immediately followed it with another vicious, deep-throated snarl. The dog was absolutely refusing to back down.
“Kick him down the stairs!” Diane screamed frantically.
I forced myself to roll onto my hands and knees. The searing pain in my right shoulder was so intense I nearly vomited all over the carpet. Two of my fingers were definitely broken.
But I could breathe again. Air rushed painfully into my tight lungs. I reached down and felt the firm, tight curve of my stomach.
The baby kicked back immediately. It was a strong, reassuring jab directly against my ribs. He was alive. He was still fighting.
Then I felt a sudden, unmistakable gush of warm liquid soak through my cotton maternity underwear and run down my inner thigh.
My water had just broken.
Pure, unadulterated panic flooded my veins. The violent physical trauma of the fall had triggered the final stage. I was going into labor right there on the middle landing.
I didn’t have time to process the sheer horror of the timing. I heard a massive, heavy crash from the upper hallway. It sounded like a piece of heavy furniture smashing into the wall.
“Get in the bathroom!” Mark roared breathlessly.
A heavy wooden door slammed shut upstairs, followed by the frantic scratching of Buster’s paws against the wood. They had trapped my dog inside the guest bathroom.
I was completely alone again. And I was bleeding heavily onto the carpet.
I grabbed the lower banister with my good left hand and hauled my heavy body upright. Every single muscle screamed in furious protest. My lower back began to seize up with the unmistakable, crushing grip of a real contraction.
I bit down hard on my lower lip to keep from screaming. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
I had to get down the remaining eight stairs. I had to reach the study on the ground floor.
The study had a solid oak door with a heavy deadbolt. More importantly, Mark kept a heavy metal fireproof safe in the bottom drawer of his desk. I knew there was a loaded revolver inside. He had bought it three years ago after a string of burglaries in the neighborhood.
I dragged my swollen left foot down to the next wooden step. Then my right foot. I clung to the lower banister like it was a life raft in a violent storm.
The silence from the upstairs hallway was deeply unnerving. The door hadn’t opened yet. They were probably assessing Mark’s leg wound.
I moved faster, ignoring the agonizing, burning pain shooting through my pelvis. I reached the bottom step and stepped onto the cold, hard marble tile of the foyer.
The grandfather clock in the nearby study ticked loudly, echoing through the empty, high-ceilinged room. It was 8:14 PM. The night was still incredibly young.
I left a faint, dark smear of bloody fluid on the white marble as I limped heavily toward the study door. The contraction finally peaked and began to slowly recede, leaving me completely gasping for breath and drenched in cold sweat.
I heard the guest bathroom door creak open upstairs.
“She’s gone,” Diane said. Her sharp voice echoed ominously down the tall stairwell.
“She went downstairs,” Mark replied grimly. His heavy footsteps sounded different now. There was a distinct, wet slapping noise mixed with his gait. Buster had definitely done some serious damage to his leg.
“She can’t run far,” Diane said coldly. “The front door is deadbolted from the inside. I took the key out when I arrived.”
I froze in the doorway of the study.
My eyes darted toward the massive, double front doors. The brass deadbolt was securely turned. The key was supposed to be hanging on a small hook right next to the door frame. The hook was completely empty.
They had planned every single agonizing detail of this night. Diane hadn’t just dropped by unannounced. She had come to make sure her younger brother actually followed through with the execution.
I threw myself inside the dark study and pushed the heavy oak door shut behind me. My shaking, broken fingers fumbled desperately with the brass lock.
The deadbolt slid into place with a loud, satisfying click.
I leaned my back against the solid wood and slid slowly down to the carpeted floor. The heavy darkness of the room wrapped around me like a thick blanket. The only light came from the small, glowing streetlamp outside the large bay window.
Heavy, uneven footsteps began slowly descending the wooden stairs.
Thud. Slap. Thud. Slap.
Mark was coming down.
“Sarah,” his deep voice called out. It wasn’t angry. It was terrifyingly calm and soothing. It was the exact tone he used when he was trying to calm me down after a stressful doctor’s appointment. “Sarah, honey. Where are you?”
I clamped my left hand tightly over my own mouth. My breathing sounded incredibly loud in the silent room.
“We need to get you to the hospital, Sarah,” Mark continued, his voice drifting slowly closer to the bottom of the stairs. “You had a terrible fall. You slipped. I tried to catch you, but my hand couldn’t hold on.”
He was actively rehearsing his story for the police. He was practicing the exact lie he would tell the paramedics when they eventually came to collect my broken body.
I forced myself up off the floor. I ignored the excruciating, throbbing pain in my dislocated shoulder. I ignored the warm, steady trickle of fluid running down my leg. I had exactly one goal right now.
The gun.
I stumbled blindly across the dark room toward the massive mahogany desk near the window. My hip bumped harshly against a heavy leather armchair, but I caught my balance before I fell.
I dropped heavily to my knees behind the desk. My hands found the bottom right drawer. I pulled hard.
It was locked.
Panic seized my chest like a cold iron vise. Mark never locked this drawer. He always kept it open for emergencies.
I pulled frantically on the brass handle again, using my good left hand to yank with all my remaining strength. The heavy wood didn’t budge a single millimeter.
He had locked the gun away. He had removed the key from the front door. He had orchestrated a perfectly sterile, inescapable trap inside my own home.
“She’s in the study,” Diane’s sharp voice said from the foyer. She was standing directly outside the oak door.
I stopped pulling on the drawer and completely froze.
“The door is locked,” Mark noted quietly. The brass doorknob jiggled violently, rattling against the heavy locking mechanism.
“Break a window,” Diane suggested.
“No,” Mark said firmly. “That ruins the narrative. It has to look like an accident. If the window is broken, the cops will ask questions. I have the master key on my ring.”
I heard the distinct, metallic jingling of his heavy keyring.
My mind scrambled frantically for a weapon. A heavy brass paperweight. A pair of sharp scissors. A thick hardcover book.
I reached up blindly to the surface of the mahogany desk, sweeping my hand across the smooth leather blotter. My fingers brushed against a thick, smooth manila folder.
It was the life insurance file. Mark must have been reviewing it right before dinner.
I grabbed the thick folder and pulled it down into my lap. I didn’t know why I cared about the paperwork right now. Maybe I just needed absolute, undeniable proof of my husband’s complete betrayal. Maybe I needed to see the exact numbers that made my life completely worthless.
I opened the heavy flap in the dim light pouring through the bay window.
The thick, glossy policy document was sitting right on top. The bold black letters spelled out my name as the primary insured. The death benefit was two million dollars.
But my eyes instantly caught the section labeled “Primary Beneficiary.”
It wasn’t Mark’s name.
The name printed in bold, black ink was Diane Reynolds.
I stared entirely blankly at the page. Why would Mark make his miserable, bitter sister the sole beneficiary of my massive life insurance policy? He would get absolutely nothing. Unless he owed her money. Unless she had something devastatingly horrible hanging over his head.
I flipped the heavy page over with my trembling left hand.
There was a second, smaller document stapled underneath. It was an additional coverage rider.
My breath caught painfully in my throat. The cold sweat turned entirely to ice on my skin.
It was a separate policy entirely. The insured party was listed simply as “Unborn Infant (Male).”
The death benefit was five hundred thousand dollars.
But it wasn’t the staggering dollar amount that stopped my heart from beating entirely. It was the specific medical clause highlighted in bright yellow ink at the very bottom of the rider.
The payout was legally valid and immediately triggered upon any fatal injury sustained in utero after the thirty-sixth week of gestation.
They weren’t just trying to kill me to get my money.
They had actively waited until my baby was large enough to be insured before they pushed me. They had timed this precise dinner, this exact day, to maximize the horrific financial payout.
A sharp, metallic clink broke the silence.
The master key slid smoothly into the heavy brass deadbolt of the study door.
I scrambled furiously backward, pushing my heavy, bleeding body against the wooden panels of the large bay window. I grabbed a heavy metal letter opener off the floor, gripping the sharp blade so tightly it cut right into my palm.
The heavy lock clicked open entirely.
May you like
The large brass doorknob turned slowly to the right.
And then the heavy oak door completely disappeared, kicked violently off its strong hinges by a massive, splintering force from the hallway.
