Chapter 8 - The Shadow at the Window
"Grant, stop!" I screamed, shielding Miller's bleeding body with my own. "There are cops outside! Miller logged this location before we arrived!"
Grant chuckled, descending the metal stairs with smooth, unhurried steps. The clang of his dress shoes on the iron grates sounded like the ticking of an execution clock.
"Miller didn't log anything," Grant said, his voice ringing with chilling confidence. "His radio went dead the minute he drove into my basement garage jammer. As far as the Dover Police Department knows, Detective Miller took a bribe from the Pierce family to help you flee the state after Helena stabbed you over family debts."
"You killed Helena!" I shouted, pointing at the dying woman beside me.
"Helena stabbed Detective Miller, Miller shot Helena in self-defense, and my poor, traumatized sister drowned in the steam boiler after getting caught in the crossfire," Grant recited smoothly, stopping ten feet away and leveling the barrel directly at my forehead. "It’s clean. It’s poetic. And best of all, it leaves Maisie as my sole legal dependent. I become the conservator of the ninety-million-dollar insurance settlement."
The room spun.
"You touch my daughter," I whispered, every drop of fear in my body turning into pure, murderous rage, "and I swear to God I will tear your throat out with my bare teeth."
"Maisie is already taken care of," Grant smiled, tilting his head toward the door. "Did you really think Briggs lost track of you at the hospital? He followed Miller’s sedan. Right now, Briggs is tapping on the glass of Miller’s car."
*Maisie.*
My daughter was alone in the parking lot.
Helena Pierce suddenly moved.
With the last reserve of strength in her dying body, the woman who had slapped me in the ballroom lunged across the concrete, wrapping her blood-slicked arms around Grant’s knees.
"Run, Claire!" Helena shrieked, blood spraying from her lips. "Run!"
Grant swore, startled, and stumbled backward. The gun bucked in his hand—*crack*—the bullet sparking off the concrete an inch from my knee.
I didn't hesitate. I didn't think about the pain, the poison, or the odds.
I snatched Miller’s fallen Glock from the floor, scrambled to my feet, and bolted through the steam toward the exit doors.
"Claire!" Grant roared behind me, followed by the sound of two muffled gunshots as he finished Helena off.
I threw my weight against the heavy push-bar of the exit door, bursting out into the freezing rain of the loading dock.
Across the dark asphalt, fifty yards away, Miller’s sedan was parked near the compactor.
Standing outside the driver’s door, holding a heavy iron tire iron raised above the driver's window, was Briggs.
Inside the car, a small silhouette was pressed against the glass.
May you like
Maisie.
***
