Chapter 24 - THE SAFE HOUSE AT CEDAR CREEK
The old man’s name was Thomas, a retired mechanic who lived in a secluded cabin near Cedar Creek.
He didn't ask more questions once we pulled into his secluded driveway, hidden behind towering weeping willows.
He carried me inside the small, warm kitchen, settling me onto a worn sofa beside a crackling stone hearth.
"Drink this," Thomas said, handing me a steaming ceramic mug of sweet black tea with trembling hands.
"I called my daughter. She's a registered nurse at the county hospital down in the valley. She's on her way."
"No hospital," I gasped, shaking my head frantically as I pushed the mug away.
"Evelyn Vance has police chiefs and hospital administrators on her payroll. If I check in, they'll find me."
Thomas paused, his eyes widening at the mention of the name.
"Evelyn Vance? The billionaire widow whose husband built half the state highway system?"
"She isn't a widow mourning her family," I said, fighting through another sharp contraction that tightened across my stomach.
"She’s a monster who sold me thirty years ago to keep her husband's inheritance for herself."
"And tonight, she ordered her private security team to execute me and her own nephew."
I reached inside my torn sweater and pulled out the thick leather dossier Ryan had shoved into my coat before the raid.
The leather was scuffed and wet, but the wax seal and the precious documents inside were completely dry.
I laid the papers out on Thomas's worn oak coffee table under the soft glow of a floor lamp.
The St. Jude's birth certificate. The wire transfers to Pelican Trust. The private investigator's surveillance file.
Thomas leaned over the table, adjusting his thick reading glasses, his breath catching in his throat as he read.
"Good God almighty," Thomas breathed, tracing Arthur Vance's certified signature on the original will.
"This will leaves the entire Vance shipping fleet, the land holdings, and the investment trusts to you."
"Evelyn Vance is living on stolen money. Every dime she ever spent belongs to you and those twins."
The sound of tires crunching on gravel outside the cabin made us both freeze in absolute terror.
Thomas moved instantly to the front window, peeling the curtain back by a fraction of an inch.
"It’s my daughter, Sarah," Thomas sighed with immense relief, unlocking the deadbolt and pulling the door open.
A young woman in dark blue medical scrubs burst into the cabin, carrying a heavy emergency medical kit.
"Dad, what on earth is going on?" Sarah asked, rushing inside and locking the door behind her.
Her eyes fell on me, taking in my bruised face, bloodstained clothing, and massive, trembling pregnancy bump.
"She’s eight months along with twins," Thomas told his daughter quickly. "Contractions started thirty minutes ago."
Sarah dropped to her knees beside the sofa, immediately wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my arm.
"Breathe with me, sweetie," Sarah said gently, checking my pulse with steady, experienced fingers.
"Your blood pressure is through the roof, and your contractions are less than eight minutes apart."
"I can't deliver here," I whispered, clutching Sarah's wrist. "Ryan is still trapped at the manor. They shot him."
"If you move right now, you'll go into full labor in the back of a truck and lose those babies," Sarah said firmly.
"You need to stabilize first. We need to stop the premature labor, or you will deliver tonight."
She pulled an ampoule and a syringe from her emergency kit, tapping the glass with professional calm.
"This is terbutaline," Sarah explained, swabbing my upper arm with alcohol. "It will slow down the uterine contractions."
The needle pricked my skin, and within five minutes, the agonizing tightness in my abdomen began to ease slightly.
While Sarah monitored my vitals, Thomas sat at the kitchen table, staring intently at the legal dossier.
"Nora," Thomas called out softly, looking up from a faded court document. "Did you look at the Pelican Trust address?"
"No," I replied, leaning my head back against the sofa cushions, my body trembling with fatigue. "Why?"
"Pelican Trust isn't an offshore bank," Thomas said, pointing to a state registration stamp on the back page.
"It’s a shell corporation registered right here in this county, thirty miles south at the old Blackwood Rail Depot."
"And the sole signatory listed on the account isn't Evelyn Vance."
I turned my head toward Thomas, my heart skipping a beat.
"Who is the signatory, Thomas?"
Thomas turned the paper around so I could read the bold, stamped letters at the bottom of the registry.
*Signatory: Detective Marcus Brody. Chief of County Criminal Investigations.*
The room seemed to grow ten degrees colder.
Marcus Brody was the senior detective who had investigated Arthur Vance’s fatal car crash thirty years ago.
The very detective Evelyn Vance had publicly praised for thirty years as a loyal family friend.
He wasn't an investigator who found Arthur's body.
He was the man Evelyn paid half a million dollars to orchestrate the entire cover-up.
Suddenly, Sarah’s cell phone buzzed violently on the coffee table beside my tea.
The screen lit up with an incoming news alert from the state capital's major news network.
Sarah picked up the phone, her eyes widening in horror as she read the banner headline out loud.
"Statewide Amber Alert and APB issued for Nora Vance, wanted for the armed kidnapping and attempted murder of Ryan Vance."
Evelyn hadn't just tried to kill us.
May you like
She had flipped the entire narrative, weaponizing the police department to hunt me down as a fugitive.
***
