Chapter 3 - Broken Ties
Margaret kicked out before David's fingers could grasp the metal. Her heavy boot struck the key, sending it skittering across the silt into the deeper current of the lake. David let out an animalistic roar, lunging forward into the brown water on his hands and knees, frantically sweeping the muddy bottom with his bare fingers.
"Run, Lily! Run!" Margaret shouted, grabbing Chloe by the collar of her cream knit sweater and dragging her backward toward the ridge. Chloe didn't fight back; the adrenaline had suddenly deserted her, leaving her hollowed out, weeping and stumbling over the shoreline stones.
Lily was already scrambling up the steep incline toward the dusty logging road where Margaret's beat-up silver Volvo was parked beneath the pines. The girl moved like a terrified deer, glancing over her shoulder every few strides, terrified that the monstrous roar coming from the water would follow her.
David rose from the shallows, dripping with pond slime and black mud. His eyes were bloodshot, his jaw clenching so hard Margaret could hear his teeth grinding from ten feet away. Slowly, deliberately, he reached behind his jacket and pulled out the dull black frame of a Glock 19. He didn't raise it, but the weapon dangled at his side, an unmistakable boundary.
"Mom," David said, his voice terrifyingly calm, stripping away decades of filial warmth. "You don't know what you're interfering with. If I don't deliver that key by morning, they won't just kill me. They will erase our entire family tree. Julian is already gone. Do you want Lily to be an orphan?"
Margaret stopped halfway up the embankment. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. Julian—her younger brother, the gentle recluse who kept the family orchards—had supposedly died of a heart attack two weeks ago in his cabin. The funeral had been closed-casket. David had insisted on handling all the arrangements himself.
"Julian didn't have a heart attack, did he?" Margaret asked, her voice barely a whisper against the wind.
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David looked away, his jaw working silently. "Give me the girl, Mom. She knows where she dropped the second half of the ledger. Let me take her, and I swear I’ll keep her safe. If you get in that car, you are signing all of our death warrants."
Behind them, the engine of Margaret's car suddenly coughed to life. Margaret turned to see Lily sitting upright in the driver's seat, her tiny hands gripping the steering wheel, her face white as chalk as the headlights flickered on through the mist.
